EDITED    BY 

WILLIAM  T.  HARRIS,  A.M.,  LL.D. 


Volume  XVII. 


THE 

INTERNATIONAL  EDUCATION  SERIES. 

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New  York  :  D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  Publishers,  72  Fifth  Avenue. 


INTERNATIONAL  EDUCATION  SERIES' 


ESSAYS  Olf 
EDUCATIOI^AL  REFORMERS 


BY 

ROBERT  HEBERT  ^UICK 

M.   A.  TRIN.   COLL.,   CAMBRIDGE 

FORUERLT  ASSISTANT  MASTER  AT  HARROW,   AND  LECTURER  OK 

THE  HISTORY  OF  EDUCATION  AT  CAMBRIDGE 

LATE  VICAR  OF   SEDBKRGH 


OHfLT  AUTHORIZED  EDITION  OF  THE  WORK 
AS  REWRITTEN  IN  1890 


NEW  YORK 

D.    APPLETON   AND    COMPANY 

1896 


Copyright,  1890, 
By  D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 


^1 


62723 


Cp  a  UKTVBBSITV  OP  CAUFOK^A^^^ 

Q  ^    ^  SANTA  B A RR A    A  ( .c:)lXEClt  L  o 


To 

DR.    HENRY     BARNARD, 

T^e  first  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education, 

WHO   IN   A   LONG   LIFE  OF 

SELF-SACRIFICING   LABOUR  HAS  GIVEN  TO  THE  ENGLISH 

LANGUAGE  AN   EDUCATIONAL   LITERATURE, 

THIS  VOLUME  IS   DEDICATED, 

WITH    THE    ESTEEM    AND    ADMIRATION    OF 

THE    AUTHOR. 


(></  yap  «m  vepi  otov  deioripov  avBpanros  &v  BovkevvaLTO,  1j  vtpl 
iToidfias  Kai  twv  avrov  Kai  tS>v  oiKfiav.  Plato  in  initio  Theagis 
(p.  122  B). 

Socrates  saith  plainlie,  that  "  no  man  goeth  about  a  more  godlie 
purpose,  than  he  that  is  mindful!  of  the  good  bringing  up  both  of  hys 
owne  and  other  men's  children." — Ascham^s  Scholemaster.     Preface.. 

Fundamentum  totitis  reipublica  est  recta  juventutis  educatio. 
The  very  foundation  of  the  whole    commonwealth    is   the  proper 
bringing  up  of  the  young. — Cic. 


EDITOR'S   PREFACE. 


Many  years  ago  I  proposed  to  my  friend  Mr.  Quick 
to  rewrite  his  Educational  Reformers,  making  some  addi- 
tions (Sturm  and  Froebel,  for  example),  and  allow  me  to 
place  it  in  this  series  of  educational  works.  I  had  read 
his  essays  when  they  first  appeared,  and  noted  their  great 
value  as  a  contribution  to  the  right  kind  of  educational 
literature.  They  showed  admirable  tact  in  the  selection 
of  the  materials  ;  the  "  epoch-making  "  writers  were  chosen 
and  the  things  that  had  been  said  and  done  of  permanent 
value  were  brought  forward.  Better  than  all  was  the  run- 
ning commentary  on  these  materials  by  Mr.  Quick  him- 
self. His  style  was  popular,  taking  the  reader,  as  it  were, 
into  confidential  relations  with  him  from  the  start,  and 
offering  now  and  then  a  word  of  criticism  in  the  most 
judicial  spirit,  leaning  neither  to  the  extreme  of  destruc- 
tive radicalism,  which  seeks  revolution  rather  than  reform, 
nor,  on  the  other  hand,  to  the  extreme  of  blind  conserva- 
tism, which  wishes  to  preserve  the  vesture  of  the  past 
rather  than  its  wisdom. 

I  have  called  this  book  of  Mr.  Quick  the  most  valu- 
able history  of  education  in  our  mother-tongue,  fit  only 
to  be  compared  with  Karl  von  Raumer's  Geschichte  der 
Padagogik  for  its  presentation  of  essentials  and  for  the 
sanity  of  its  verdicts. 


viii  EDITOR  S    PREFACE. 

I  made  my  proposal  that  he  "  rewrite  "  his  book  be- 
cause I  knew  that  he  considered  his  first  edition  hastily 
written  and,  in  many  respects,  not  adequate  to  the  ideal 
he  had  conceived  of  the  book.  I  knew,  moreover,  that 
years  of  continued  thinking  on  a  theme  necessarily  modi- 
fies one's  views.  He  would  wish  to  make  some  changes 
in  matter  presented,  some  in  judgments  rendered,  and 
many  more  in  style  of  presentation. 

Hence  it  has  come  about  that  after  this  lapse  of  time 
Mr.  Quick  has  produced  a  substantially  new  book,  which, 
retaining  all  or  nearly  all  of  the  admirable  features  of  the 
first  edition,  has  brought  up  to  their  standard  of  excellence 
many  others. 

The  history  of  education  is  a  vast  field,  and  we  are 
accustomed  to  demand  bulky  treatises  as  the  only  ade- 
quate ones.  But  the  obvious  disadvantage  of  such  works 
has  led  to  the  clearly  defined  ideal  of  a  book  like  Mr. 
Quick's,  which  separates  the  gold  from  the  dross,  and 
offers  it  small  in  bulk  but  precious  in  value. 

The  educational  reformers  are  the  men  above  all  others 
who  stimulate  us  to  think  about  education.  Every  one 
of  these  was  an  extremist,  and  erred  in  his  judgment  as 
to  the  value  of  the  methods  which  prevailed  in  his  time, 
and  also  overestimated  the  effects  of  the  new  education 
that  he  proposed  in  the  place  of  the  old.  But  thought 
begins  with  negations,  and  originality  shows  itself  first 
not  in  creating  something  new,  but  in  removing  the  fetter- 
ing limitations  of  its  existing  environment.  The  old  is 
attacked — its  good  and  its  bad  are  condemned  alike.  It 
has  been  imposed  on  us  by  authority,  and  we  have  not 
been  allowed  to  summon  it  before  the  bar  of  our  reason 
and  ask  of  it  its  credentials.  It  informs  us  that  it  pre- 
sented these  credentials  ages  ago  to  our  ancestors — men 


EDITORS    PREFACE.  IX 

older  and  wiser  than  we  are.  Such  imposition  of  author- 
ity leaves  us  no  choice  but  to  revolt.  We,  too,  have  a 
right  to  think  as  well  as  our  ancestors ;  we,  too,  must  clear 
up  the  ground  of  our  belief  and  substitute  insight  for  blind 
faith  in  tradition. 

These  educational  reformers  are  prophets  of  the  clear- 
ing-up  period  {Aufkldrung)  of  revolution  against  mere 
authority. 

While  we  are  inspired  to  think  for  ourselves,  however, 
we  must  not  neglect  that  more  important  matter  of  think- 
ing the  truth.  Free-thinking,  if  it  does  not  reach  the 
truth,  is  not  of  great  value.  It  sets  itself  as  puny  indi- 
vidual against  the  might  of  the  race,  which  preserves  its 
experience  in  the  forms  of  institutions — the  family,  the 
social  organism,  the  state,  the  Church. 

Hence  our  wiser  and  more  scientific  method  studies 
everything  that  is,  or  exists,  in  its  history,  and  endeavors 
to  discover  how  it  came  to  be  what  it  is.  It  inquires  into 
its  evolution.  The  essential  truth  is  not  the  present  fact, 
but  the  entire  process  by  which  the  present  fact  grew  to 
be  what  it  is.  For  the  living  force  that  made  the  present 
fact  made  also  the  past  facts  antecedent  to  the  present, 
and  it  will  go  on  making  subsequent  facts.  The  revela- 
tion of  the  living  forces  which  make  the  facts  of  exist- 
ence is  the  object  of  science.  It  takes  all  these  facts  to 
reveal  the  living  force  that  is  acting  and  producing  them. 

Hence  the  scientific  attitude  is  superior  to  the  attitude 
of  these  educational  reformers,  and  we  shall  in  our  own 
minds  weigh  these  men  in  our  scales,  asking  first  of  all : 
What  is  their  view  of  the  world }  How  much  do  they 
value  human  institutions }  How  much  do  they  know  of 
the  substantial  good  that  is  wrought  by  those  institutions  ? 
If  they  know  nothing  of  these  things,  if  they  see  only  in- 


X  editor's  preface. 

cumbrance  in  these  institutions,  if  to  them  the  individual 
is  the  measure  of  all  things,  we  can  not  do  reverence  to 
their  proposed  remedies,  but  must  account  their  value  to 
us  chiefly  this,  that  they  have  stimulated  us  to  thinking, 
and  helped  us  to  discover  what  they  have  not  discovered 
— namely,  the  positive  value  of  institutions. 

All  education  deals  with  the  boundary  between  igno- 
rance and  knowledge  and  between  bad  habits  and  good 
ones.  The  pupil  as  pupil  brings  with  him  the  ignorance 
and  the  bad  habits,  and  is  engaged  in  acquiring  good 
habits  and  correct  knowledge. 

This  situation  gives  us  a  general  recipe  for  a  frequently 
recurring  type  of  educational  reformer.  Any  would-be 
reformer  may  take  his  stand  on  the  boundary  mentioned, 
and,  casting  an  angry  look  at  the  realm  of  ignorance  and 
bad  habit  not  yet  conquered,  condemn  in  wholesale  terms 
the  system  of  education  that  has  not  been  efficient  in  re- 
moving this  mental  and  moral  darkness. 

Such  a  reformer  selects  an  examination  paper  written 
by  a  pupil  whose  ignorance  is  not  yet  vanquished,  and 
parades  the  same  as  a  product  of  the  work  of  the  school, 
taking  great  pains  to  avoid  an  accurate  and  just  admeas- 
urement of  the  actual  work  done  by  the  school.  The 
reformer  critic  assumes  that  there  is  one  factor  here, 
whereas  there  are  three  factors — namely,  {a)  the  pupil's 
native  and  acquired  powers  of  learning,  {d)  his  actual 
knowledge  acquired,  and  {c)  the  instruction  given  by  the 
school.  The  school  is  not  responsible  for  the  first  and 
second  of  these  factors,  but  it  is  responsible  only  for  what 
increment  has  grown  under  its  tutelage.  How  much  and 
what  has  the  pupil  increased  his  knowledge,  and  how 
much  his  power  of  acquiring  knowledge  and  of  doing? 

The  educational  reformer  is  always  telling  us  to  leave 


EDITOR  S    PREFACE.  XI 

words  and  take  up  things.  He  dissuades  from  the  study 
of  language,  and  also  undervalues  the  knowledge  of  man- 
ners and  customs  and  laws  and  usages.  He  dislikes  the 
study  of  institutions  even.  He  "  loves  Nature,"  as  he  in- 
forms us.  Herbert  Spencer  wants  us  to  study  the  body, 
and  to  be  more  interested  in  biology  than  in  formal  logic ; 
more  interested  in  natural  history  than  in  literature.  But 
I  think  he  would  be  indignant  if  one  were  to  ask  him 
whether  he  thought  the  study  of  the  habits  and  social  in- 
stincts of  bees  and  ants  is  less  important  than  the  study 
of  insect  anatomy  and  physiology.  Anatomy  and  physi- 
ology are,  of  course,  important,  but  the  social  organism  is 
more  important  than  the  physiological  organism,  even  in 
bees  and  ants. 

So  in  man  the  social  organism  is  transcendent  as  com- 
pared with  human  physiology,  and  social  hygiene  com- 
pared with  physiological  hygiene  is  supreme. 

To  suppose  that  the  habits  of  plants  and  insects  are 
facts,  and  that  the  structure  of  human  languages,  the  logi- 
cal structure  of  the  mind  itself  as  revealed  in  the  figures 
and  modes  of  the  syllogism  and  the  manners  and  customs 
of  social  life,  the  deep  ethical  principles  which  govern 
peoples  as  revealed  in  works  of  literature — to  suppose 
that  these  and  the  like  of  these  are  not  real  facts  and 
worthy  of  study  is  one  of  the  strangest  delusions  that  has 
ever  prevailed. 

But  it  is  a  worse  delusion  to  suppose  that  the  study  of 
Nature  is  more  practical  than  the  study  of  man,  though 
this  is  often  enough  claimed  by  the  educational  reformers. 

The  knowledge  of  most  worth  is  first  and  foremost  the 
knowledge  of  how  to  behave — a  knowledge  of  social  cus- 
toms and  usages.  Any  person  totally  ignorant  in  this 
regard  would  not  escape  imprisonment — perhaps  I  should 


XU  EDITORS    PREFACE. 

say  decapitation — for  one  day  in  any  city  of  the  world — 
say  in  London,  in  Pekin,  in  Timbuctoo,  or  in  d, pueblo  of 
Arizona.  A  knowledge  of  human  customs  and  usages, 
next  a  knowledge  of  human  views  of  Nature  and  man — 
these  are  of  primordial  necessity  to  an  individual,  and  are 
means  of  direct  self-preservation. 

The  old  trivium  or  threefold  course  of  study  at  the 
university  taught  grammar,  logic,  and  rhetoric — namely, 
(i)  the  structure  of  language,  (2)  the  structure  of  mind 
and  the  art  of  reasoning,  (3)  the  principles  and  art  of  per- 
suasion. These  may  be  seen  at  once  to  be  lofty  subjects 
and  worthy  objects  of  science.  They  will  always  remain 
such,  but  they  are  not  easy  for  the  child.  In  the  course 
of  mastering  them  he  must  learn  to  master  himself  and 
gain  great  intellectual  stature.  Pedagogy  has  wisely 
graded  the  road  to  these  heights,  and  placed  much  easier 
studies  at  the  beginning  and  also  made  the  studies  more 
various.  Improvements  in  methods  and  in  grading — de- 
vices for  interesting  the  pupil — so  essential  to  his  self- 
activity,  for  these  we  have  to  thank  the  Educational  Re- 
formers. 

W.  T.  Harris. 

Washington,  D.  C,  1890. 


PREFACE  TO   EDITION  OF  1868. 


"  //  is  clear  that  in  whatever  it  is  our  duty  to  act,  those 
matters  also  it  is  our  duty  to  study."  These  words  of  Dr. 
Arnold's  seem  to  me  incontrovertible.  So  a  sense  of  duty, 
as  well  as  fondness  for  the  subject,  has  led  me  to  devote  a 
period  of  leisure  to  the  study  of  Education,  in  the  practice 
of  which  I  have  been  for  some  years  engaged. 

There  are  countries  where  it  would  be  considered  a  truism 
that  a  teacher  in  order  to  exercise  his  profession  intelligently 
should  know  something  about  the  chief  authorities  in  it. 
Here,  however,  I  suppose  such  an  assertion  will  seem  para- 
doxical ;  but  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  in  defence  of 
it.  De  Quincey  has  pointed  out  that  a  man  who  takes  up 
any  pursuit  without  knowing  what  advances  others  have 
made  in  it  works  at  a  great  disadvantage.  He  does  not 
apply  his  strength  in  the  right  direction,  he  troubles  him- 
self about  small  matters  and  neglects  great,  he  falls  into 
errors  that  have  long  since  been  exploded.  An  educator 
is,  I  think,  liable  to  these  dangers  if  he  brings  to  his  task 
no  knowledge  but  that  which  he  learnt  for  the  tripos,  and 
no  skill  but  that  which  he  acquired  in  the  cricket  ground  or 
on  the  river.  If  his  pupils  are  placed  entirely  in  his  hands, 
his  work  is  one  of  great  difficulty,  with  heavy  penalties  at- 
tached to  all  blundering  in  it ;  though  here,  as  in  the  case 


XIV  PREFACE. 

of  the  ignorant  doctor  and  the  careless  architect,  the 
penalties,  unfortunately,  are  paid  by  his  victims.  If  (as 
more  commonly  happens)  he  has  simply  to  give  a  class  pre- 
scribed instruction,  his  smaller  scope  of  action  limits 
proportionally  the  mischief  that  may  ensue  ;  but  even  then 
it  is  obviously  desirable  that  his  teaching  should  be  as  good 
as  possible,  and  he  is  not  likely  to  employ  the  best  methods 
if  he  invents  as  he  goes  along,  or  simply  falls  back  on  his 
remembrance  of  how  he  was  taught  himself,  perhaps  in  very 
different  circumstances.  I  venture  to  think,  therefore,  that 
practical  men  in  education,  as  in  most  other  things,  may 
derive  benefit  from  the  knowledge  of  what  has  already  been 
said  and  done  by  the  leading  men  engaged  in  it,  both  past 
and  present. 

All  study  of  this  kind,  however,  is  very  much  impeded  by 
want  of  books.  "Good  books  are  in  German,"  says  Professor 
Seeley.  I  have  found  that  on  the  history  of  Education,  not 
only  good  books  but  all  books  are  in  German  or  some  other 
foreign  language.*  I  have,  therefore,  thought  it  worth  while 
to  publish  a  few  such  imperfect  sketches  as  these,  with  which 

*  When  the  greater  part  of  this  volume  was  already  written,  Mr. 
Parker  published  his  sketch  of  the  history  of  Classical  Education  {Essays 
on  a  Liberal  Education,  edited  by  Farrar).  He  seems  to  me  to  have 
been  very  successful  in  bringing  out  the  most  important  features  of  his 
subject,  but  his  essay  necessarily  shows  marks  of  over-compressioiu 
Two  volumes  have  also  lately  appeared  on  Christian  Schools  and 
Scholars  (Longmans,  1867).  Here  we  have  a  good  deal  of  information 
which  we  want,  and  also,  it  seems  to  me,  a  good  deal  which  we  do  not 
want.  The  work  characteristically  opens  with  a  loth  century  description 
of  the  personal  appearance  of  St.  Mark  when  he  landed  at  Alexandria. 
The  author  treats  only  of  the  times  which  preceded  the  Council  of  Trent. 
A  very  interesting  account  of  early  English  education  has  been  given  by 
Mr.  Fumivall,  in  the  2nd  and  3rd  numbers  of  the  Quarterly  Journal  oj 
Education  {1867).     [I  did  not  then  know  of  Dr.  Barnard's  works.] 


PREFACE.  XV 

the  reader  can  hardly  be  less  satisfied  than  the  author. 
They  may,  however,  prove  useful  till  they  give  place  to  a 
better  book. 

Several  of  the  following  essays  are  nothing  more  than 
compilations.  Indeed,  a  hostile  critic  might  assert  that  I  had 
used  tlie  scissors  with  the  energy  of  Mr.  Timbs  and  without 
his  discretion.  The  reader,  however,  will  probably  agree 
with  me  that  I  have  done  wisely  in  putting  before  him  the 
opinions  of  great  writers  in  their  own  language.  Where  I 
am  simply  acting  as  reporter,  the  author's  own  way  of  ex- 
pressing himself  is  obviously  the  best ;  and  if,  following  the 
example  of  the  gipsies  and  Sir  Fretful  Plagiary,  I  had  dis- 
figured other  people's  offspring  to  make  them  pass  for  my 
own,  success  would  have  been  fatal  to  the  purpose  I  have 
steadily  kept  in  view.  The  sources  of  original  ideas  in  any 
subject,  as  the  student  is  well  aware,  are  few,  but  for  irriga- 
tion we  require  troughs  as  well  as  water-springs,  and  these 
essays  are  intended  to  serve  in  the  humbler  capacity. 

A  word  about  the  incomplete  handling  of  my  subjects.  I 
have  not  attempted  to  treat  any  subject  completely,  or  even 
with  anything  like  completeness.  In  giving  a  sketch  of  the 
opinions  of  an  author  one  of  two  methods  must  be  adopted ; 
we  may  give  an  epitome  of  all  that  he  has  said,  or  by  con- 
fining ourselves  to  his  more  valuable  and  characteristic 
opinions,  may  gain  space  to  give  these  fully.  As  I  detest 
epitomes,  I  have  adopted  the  latter  method  exclusively,  but 
I  may  sometimes  have  failed  in  selecting  an  author's  most 
characteristic  principles ;  and  probably  no  two  readers  of  a 
book  would  entirely  agree  as  to  what  was  most  valuable  in 
it :  so  my  account  must  remain,  after  all,  but  a  poor  substi- 
tute for  the  author  himself. 

For  the  pait  of  a  critic  I  have  at  least  one  qualification — 
practical  acquaintance  with  the  subject.     As  boy  or  master. 


XVI  PREFACE. 

I  have  been  connected  with  no  less  than  eleven  scho<.>1Sj 
and  my  perception  of  the  blunders  of  other  teachers  is 
derived  mainly  from  the  remembrance  of  my  own.  Some 
of  my  mistakes  have  been  brought  home  to  me  by  reajing 
works  on  education,  even  those  with  which  I  do  not  in  the 
main  agree.  Perhaps  there  are  teachers  who  on  lookinj 
through  the  following  pages  may  meet  with  a  similar  ex 
perience. 

Had  the  essays  been  written  in  the  order  in  which  they 
stand,  a  good  deal  of  repetition  might  have  been  avoided, 
but  this  repetition  has  at  least  the  advantage  of  bringing  out 
points  which  seem  to  me  important ;  and  as  no  one  will 
read  the  book  as  carefully  as  I  have  done,  I  hope  no  one 
will  be  so  much  alive  to  this  and  other  blemishes  in  it. 

I  much  regret  that  in  a  work  which  is  nothing  if  it  is  not 
practically  useful,  I  have  so  often  neglected  to  mark  the 
exact  place  from  which  quotations  are  taken.  I  have  myself 
paid  the  penalty  of  this  carelessness  in  the  trouble  it  has 
cost  me  to  verify  passages  which  seemed  inaccurate. 

The  authority  I  have  had  recourse  to  most  frequently  is 
Raumer  {Geschichte  der  Pddagogik).  In  his  first  two  volumes 
he  gives  an  account  of  the  chief  men  connected  with  educa- 
tion, from  Dante  to  Pestalozzi.  The  third  volume  con- 
tains essays  on  various  parts  of  education,  and  the  fourth  is 
devoted  to  German  Universities.  There  is  an  English 
translation,  published  in  America,  of  the  fourth  volume 
only.  I  confess  to  a  great  partiality  for  Raumer — a  par 
tiality  which  is  not  shared  by  a  Saturday  Reviewer  and 
by  other  competent  authorities  in  this  country.  But  surely 
a  German  author  who  is  not  profound,  and  is  almost  per- 
spicuous, has  some  claim  on  the  gratitude  of  English  readers, 
if  he  gives  information  which  we  cannot  get  in  our  own 
language.     To  Raumer  I  am  indebted  for  all  that  I  have 


PREFACE.  XVll 

vrritten  about  Ratke,  and  almost  all  about  Basedow.  Else- 
where his  history  has  been  used,  though  not  to  the  same 
extent. 

C.  A.  Schmid's  Encyc^opddie  des  Erziehungs-und-Unter- 
richtswesens  is  a  vast  mine  of  information  on  everything 
connected  with  education.  The  work  is  still  in  progress. 
The  part  containing  Rousseau  has  only  just  reached  me.  I 
should  have  been  glad  of  it  when  I  was  giving  an  account 
of  the  Emile,  as  Raumer  was  of  little  use  to  me. 

Those  for  whom  Schmid  is  too  diffuse  and  expensive  will 
find  Carl  Gottlob  Hergang's  Pddagogische  Realencyclopddie 
useful.  This  is  in  two  thick  volumes,  and  costs,  to  thebest 
of  my  memory,  about  eighteen  shillings.     It  was  finished  in 

1847. 

The  best  sketch  I  have  met  with  of  the  general  history  of 
education  is  in  the  article  on  Pddagogik  in  Meyers  Conversa- 
tions-Lexicon* I  wish  someone  would  translate  this  article ; 
and  I  should  be  glad  to  draw  the  attention  of  the  editor  of 
an  educational  periodical,  say  the  Aluseum  or  the  Quarterly 
Journal  of  Education,  to  it. 

I  have  come  upon  references  to  many  other  works  on  the 
history  of  Education,  but  of  these  the  only  ones  1  have  seen 
are  Theodore  Fritz's  Esquisse  d'uti  Systhne  complet  d'instruc- 
tion  et  d' education  et  de  leur  histoire  (3  vols.,  Strasburg,  1843), 
and  Carl  Schmidt's  Geschichte  der  Pddagogik  (4  vols.).  The 
first  of  these  gives  only  the  outline  of  the  subject.  The 
second  is,  I  believe,  considered  a  standard  work.  It  does 
not  seem  to  me  so  readable  as  Raumer's  history,  but  it  is 
much  more  complete,  and  comes  down  to  quite  recent 
times. 

For  my  account  of  the  Jesuit  schools  and  of  Pestalozzi, 

•  This  article  is  omitted  in  the  last  edition. 


XVni  PREFACE. 

the  authorities  will  be  found  elsewhere  (pp.  34  and  383). 
In  writing  about  Comenius  I  have  had  much  assistance  from 
a  life  of  him  prefixed  to  an  English  translation  of  his  School 
of  Infancy,  by  Daniel  Benham  (London,  1858).  For  almost 
all  the  information  given  about  Jacotot,  I  am  indebted  to 
Mr,  Payne's  papers,  which  I  should  not  have  ventured  to 
extract  from  so  freely  if  they  had  been  before  the  public  in 
a  more  permanent  form. 

I  am  sorry  I  cannot  refer  to  any  English  works  on  the 
history  of  Education,  except  the  essays  of  Mr.  Parker  and 
Mr.  Furnivall,  and  Christian  Schools  and  Scholars,  which  are 
mentioned  above,  but  we  have  a  very  good  treatise  on  the 
principles  of  education  in  Marcel's  Language  as  a  Means  of 
Mental  Culture  (2  vols.,  London,  1853).  Edgeworth's 
Practical  Education  seems  falling  into  undeserved  neglect, 
and  Mr.  Spencer's  recent  work  is  not  universally  known 
even  by  schoolmasters. 

If  the  following  pages  attract  but  few  readers,  it  will  be 
some  consolation,  though  rather  a  melancholy  one,  that  I 
share  the  fate  of  my  betters. 

R.  H.  O. 

Ingatestone,  Essex,  May,  1868. 


PREFACE  TO   EDITION   OF   1890. 

When  I  was  a  young  man  (/.  e.,  nearly  forty  years  ago),  I 
once  did  what  those  who  know  the  ground  would  declare 
a  very  risky,  indeed,  a  fool-hardy  thing.  I  was  at  the 
highest  point  of  the  Gemmi  Pass  in  Switzerland,  above  the 


PREFACE.  XIX 

Rhone  Valley;  and  being  in  a  hurry  to  get  down  and 
overtake  my  party  I  ran  from  ihe  top  to  the  bottom.  The 
path  in  those  days  was  not  so  good  as  it  is  now,  and  it  is  so 
near  the  precipice  that  a  few  years  afterwards  a  lady  in 
descending  lost  her  head  and  fell  over.  No  doubt  I  was 
in  great  danger  of  a  drop  of  a  thousand  feet  or  so.  But  of 
t'lis  I  was  totally  unconscious.  I  was  in  a  thick  mist,  and 
saw  the  path  for  a  few  yards  in  front  of  me  and  nothing  more. 
When  I  think  of  the  way  in  which  this  book  was  written  three 
and  twenty  years  ago  I  can  compare  it  to  nothing  but  my 
first  descent  of  the  Gemmi.  I  did  a  very  risky  thing  without 
knowing  it.  My  path  came  into  view  little  by  little  as  I  went 
on.  All  else  was  hid  from  me  by  a  thick  mist  of  ignorance. 
When  I  began  the  book  I  knew  next  to  nothing  of  the  Re- 
formers, but  I  studied  hard  and  wrote  hard,  and  I  turned  out 
the  essays  within  the  year.  This  feat  I  now  regard  with  amaze- 
ment, almost  with  horrer.  Since  that  time  I  have  given 
more  years  of  work  to  the  subject  than  I  had  then  given 
months,  and  the  consequence  is  I  find  I  can  write  fast  no 
longer.  The  mist  has  in  a  measure  cleared  off,  and  I  cannot 
jog  along  in  comfort  as  I  did  when  I  saw  less.  At  the  same 
time  I  have  no  reason  to  repent  of  the  adventure.  Being 
fortunate  in  my  plan  and  thoroughly  interested  by  my 
subject,  I  succeeded  beyond  my  wildest  expectations  in 
getting  others  to  take  an  interest  in  it  also.  The  small 
English  edition  of  500  copies  was,  as  soon  as  I  reduced  the 
price,  sold  off  immediately,  and  the  book  has  been,  in 
England,  for  twenty  )  ears  "  out  of  print."  But  no  less  than 
three  publishing  firms  in  the  United  States  have  reprinted 
it  (one  quite  recently)  without  my  consent,  and,  except  in 
the  edition  of  Messrs.  R.  Clarke  &  Co.,  Cincinnati,  with 
omissions  and  additions  made  without  my  knowledge.  It 
seems   then   that   the   book  will  live  for  some  years  yet, 


XX  PREFACE. 

whtther  I  like  it  or  not ;  and  while  it  lives  I  wish  it  to  be 
in  a  form  somewhat  less  defective  than  at  its  first  appearance. 
I  have  therefore  in  a  great  measure  re-written  it,  beside? 
filling  in  a  gap  here  and  there  with  an  additional  essay. 
Perhaps  some  critics  will  call  it  a  new  book  with  an  old 
title.  If  they  do,  they  will  I  trust  allow  that  the  new  book 
has  at  least  two  merits  which  went  far  to  secure  the  success 
of  the  old,  I  St,  a  good  title,  and  2nd,  a  good  plan.  My 
plan  in  both  editions  has  been  to  select  a  few  people  who 
seemed  specially  worth  knowing  about,  and  to  tell  con 
cerning  them  in  some  detail  just  that  which  seemed  to  me 
specially  worth  knowing.  So  I  have  given  what  I  thought 
very  valuable  or  very  interesting,  and  everything  I  thought 
not  particularly  valuable  or  interesting  I  have  ruthlessly 
omitted.  I  have  not  attempted  a  cotnplete  account  of  any- 
body or  anything ;  and  as  for  what  the  examiner  may  "  set," 
I  have  not  once  given  his  question*  a  thought. 

As  the  book  is  likely  to  have  more  readers  in  the  country 
of  its  adoption  than  in  the  country  of  its  birth,  I  have  per- 
suaded my  friend  Dr.  William  T.  Harris,  the  United 
States  Commissioner  of  Education,  to  put  it  into  "  The 
International  Education  Series "  which  he  edits.  So 
the  only  authorized  editions  of  the  book  are  the  Eng- 
lish edition,  and  the  American  edition  published  by 
Messrs.  D.  Appleton  &  Co. 

R.  H.  Q. 
Earlswood  Cottage, 
Redhill,  Surrey,  England, 
28tk  July,  i8go. 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 


Chapter  I.— Effects  of  the  Renascence   , 
No  escape  from  the  Past 
"  Discovery  "  of  the  Classics 
Mark  Pattison's  account  of  Renascence 
Revival  of  taste  for  beauty  in  Literature 
What  is  Literature? 
Renascence  loved  beauty  of  expression 
No  translations.     The  "  educated  "     ... 
Spread  of  literature  by  printing 
School  course  settled  before  Bacon 
First  defect :    Learner  above  Doer... 
Second:   Over-estimate  of  literature    ... 
Literary  taste  not  common  ... 
Third  :    Literature  banished  from  school 
Translations  would  be  literature 
The  classics  not  written  for  children    ... 
Language  versus  Literature.. 
Fourth  :    "  Miss  as  good  as  a  mile 
Fifth:   Neglect  of  children  ... 
Child's  study  of  his  surroundings 
Aut  Caesar  aut  nihil  ... 

Chapter  IL — Renascence  Tendencies  ... 
Reviving  the  Past.     The  Scholars  ... 
The  Sc/iolars :   things  for  words 
Verbal  Realists :  things  through  woids 
Stylists:   words  for  themselves 

Chapter  IIL— Sturmius.    (1507-1589) 
His  early  life.     Settles  in  Strassburg  ... 
His  course  of  Latin.     Dismissed    ... 


PAGE 

1-2 1 

2 

3 

4 

"  5 

6 

7 
8 

9 
10 
II 
12 
13 

.  14 
IS 

.       16 

17 
.  18 
19 
20 
21 

.22-26 

23 

•      24 

25 
.      26 

27-32 

.      28 

29 


XXU  CONTENTS. 

Chapter  III — tontiniud.  PAeiE 

The  Schoolmaster  taught  Latin  mainly           .*.        •»        ...  JO 

Resulting  verbalism 3I 

Some  books  about  Sturm          ...         ...        .».        32 

Chapter  IV.  — Schools  of  the  Jesuits       ...        .».        ...      3362 

Importance  of  the  Jesuit  Schools          34 

The  Society  in  part  educational      35 

"  Ratio  atque  Institutio."    Societas  Professa 36 

The  Jesuit  teacher  :   his  preparation,  &c 37 

Supervision.     Maintenance.     Lower  Schools...         ...         ...  38 

Free  instruction.     Equality.     Boarders 39 

Classes.     Curriculum.     Latin  only  used          40 

Teacher  Lectured.     Exercises.     Saying  by  heart            ...  41 

Emulation,     "^muli."     Concertations         42 

"Academies."     Expedients.     School-hours        43 

Method  of  teaching.     An  example      44 

Attention.     Extra  work.     "Repetitio" 45 

Repetition.     Thoroughness       46 

Yearly  examinations.     Moral  training       ...         ...         ...  47 

Care  of  health.     Punishments 48 

English  want  of  system         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  49 

Jesuit  limitations ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  50 

Gains  from  memorizing        ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  51 

Popularity.     Kindness   ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  52 

Sympathy  with  each  pupil 53 

Work  moderate  in  amount  and  difficulty         54 

The  Society  the  Army  of  the  Church         ...         ...         ...  55 

Their  pedagogy  not  disinterested         56 

Practical         57 

The  forces  :   I.  Master's  influence.     2.  Emulation 57-58 

A  pupil's  summing-up          ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  59 

Some  books         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         .„  60 

Barbier's  advice  to  new  master       ...         ...         ...         ...  61 

Loyola  and  Montaigne.     Port-Royal  ...         ...  62 

Chapter  V.— Rabelais.    (1483-1553.)         63-69 

Rabelais'  ideal.     A  new  start 64 

Religion.     Study  of  Things 65 

"Anschauung."    Hand-work.    Books  and  Life       ...        .„  66 


CONTENTS. 


XXlll 


Chapter  V— continued. 

Training  the  body     .^        .^        ...        .„        ,^ 

Rabelais'  Curriculum      ... 

Study  of  Scripture.     Piety ,        

Chapter  VI. — Montaigne.     (1533-1592.) 

Writers  and  doers.     Montaigne  versus  Renascence 
Character  before  knowledge.     True  knowledge 
Athens  and  Sparta.     Wisdom  before  knowledge 

Knowing,  and  knowing  by  heart  

Learning  necessary  as  employment 

Montaigne  and  our  Public  Schools       

Pressure  from  Science  and  Examinations  ... 

Danger  from  knowledge...         ...         

Montaigne  and  Lord  Armstrong    

Chapter  VIL—Ascham.     (1515-1568.) 

Wolsey  on  teaching „ 

History  of  Methods  useful         

Our  three  celebrities 

Ascham's  method  for  Latin :   first  stage 

Second  stage.     The  six  points        

Value  of  double  translating  and  writing 
Study  of  a  model  book.     Queen  Elizabeth 

"  A  dozen  times  at  the  least  "  ...         

"  Impressionists  "  and  "  Retainers  " 

Chapter  VIII.— Mulcaster.    (i53i(?)-i6ii.)  ... 
Old  books  in  English  on  education 
Mulcaster's  wisdom  hidden  by  his  style 

Education  and  "  learning  " 

I.  Development.     2.  Child-study 

3.  Groundwork  by  best  workman 

4.  No  forcing  of  young  plants 

5.  The  elementary  course.     English 

6.  Girls  as  well  as  Boys  ...         

7.  Training  of  Teachers       

Training  college  at  the  Universities     ...         ... 

Mulcaster's  reasons  for  training  teachers    ... 
Mulcaster's  Life  and  Writings  ...        .»        m. 


PAGE 
67 

.   68 
69 

.70-79 

71 
.   72 

73 
•   74 

75 
.   76 

77 
.   78 

79 

.80-89 

81 
«   82 

83 
.   84 

85 

.   86 

87,88 

.   88 

89 

90-102 


«.        91 

92 

93 

94 

95 

...   .-   96 

97 

98 

99 

100 

lOI 

10a 

xxiv  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Chapter  IX.— Ratichius.    (i57i-i635->      -  i"3-"8 

Principles  of  the  Innovators      ~         .►  ...  ^04 

Ratke's  Address  to  the  Diet..         ...         .►  .►  ...  105 

At  Augsburg.     At  Koethen      ...         ...  106 

Failure  at  Koethen l"7 

German  in  the  school.     Ratichius's  services  ...         , 108 

1.  Follow  Nature.     2.  One  thing  at  a  time        109 

3.  Over  and  over  again no 

4.  Everything  through  the  mother-tongue Ill 

5.  Nothing  on  compulsion         112 

6.  Nothing  to  be  learnt  by  heart 113 

7.  Uniformity.     8.  Ne  modus  rei  ante  rem 114 

9.  Per  inductionem  omnia 115 

Ratke's  method  for  language 116 

Ratke's  method  and  Ascham's        ...         117 

Slow  progress  in  methods  ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  118 

Chapter  X.— Comenius.     (1592-1671.)       ...        119-171 

Early  years.     His  first  book      120 

Troubles.     Exile       121 

Pedagogic  studies  at  Leszna       122 

Didactic  written.    Janua  published.     Pansophy 123 

Samuel  Hartlib 124 

The  Prodromus  and  Dilucidatio     ...         ...         ...         ...  125 

Comenius  in  London.     Parliamentary  schemes  126 

Comenius  driven  away  by  Civil  War  127 

In  Sweden.     Interviews  with  Oxenstiem        ...         ...         ...  128 

Oxenstiern  criticises 129 

Comenius  at  Elbing        130 

At  Leszna  again        131 

Saros-Patak.     Flight  from  Leszna       ...        ., 132 

Last  years  at  Amsterdam     ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  133 

Comenius  sought  true  foundation  ...         ...         ...         ...  134 

Threefold  life.     Seeds  of  learning,  virtue,  piety  ,..         ...  135 

Omnia  sponte  fluant.     Analogies         ...         ...         ...         ...  136 

Analogies  of  growth  ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ,„  137 

Senses.     Foster  desire  of  knowledge .„         ,..  138 

No  punishments.     Words  and  Things  together 139 

Languages.     System  of  schools...        ..»        ,„        ...        ...  140 


CONTENTS. 


XXV 


Chapter  ^—continued. 

Mother-tongue  School.     Girls 

School  teaching.     Mother's  teaching  ... 

O^menius  and  the  Kindergarten     ... 

Starting-points  of  the  sciences 

Beginnings  in  Geography,  History,  &c.     . 

Drawing.     Education  for  all     

Scientific  and  Religious  Agreement 
Bishop  Buller  on  Educating  the  Poor  ... 

Comenius  and  Bacon  

"  Everything  Through  the  Senses"     ... 
Error  of  Neglecting  the  Senses 

Insufficiency  of  the  Senses         

Comenius  undervalued  the  Past 

Literature  and  Science 

Comenius's  use  of  Analogies 
Thought-studies  and  Label-studies 
Unity  of  Knowledges 

Theory  and  the  Practical  Man 

Mother-tongue.     Words  and  Things  together 

Janua  Linguanim  ...         

The  Jesuits' Janua     ... 
Comenius  adapts  Jesuits'  Janua 
Anchoran's  edition  of  Comenius's  Janua   . 
Change  to  be  made  by  Janua     ... 
Popularity  of  Janua  shortlived 
Lubinus  projector  of  Orbis  Pictus        ... 

Orbis  Pictus  described 

Why  Comenius's  schoolbooks  failed     ... 
" Compendia  Dispendia  "    ... 
Comenius  and  Science  of  Education    ... 
Books  on  Comenius 


Chaptei  XL— The  Gentlemen  of  Port-Royal 

The  Jesuits  and  the  Arnaulds 

Saint-Cyran  and  Port-Royal      

Saint-Cyran  an  "  Evangelical  "       

Short  career  of  the  Little  Schools         

Saint-C)Tan  and  Locke  on  Public  Schools 
Shadow-side  of  Public  Schools ► 


17; -196 

173 
.-     174 


xxvi  CONTENTS. 

Chapter  XI — continued.  'age 

The  Little  Schools  for  the  few  only           m.         w        —  179 

Advantages  of  great  schools       'o° 

Choice  of  masters  and  servants.     Watch  and  pray          ...  i8i 

No  rivalry  or  pressure.     Freedom  from  routine         182 

Study  a  delight.     Reading  French  first     183 

L4terature.     Mother-tongue  first          i^4 

Beginners' difficulties  lightened       185 

Begin  with  Latin  into  Mother-tongue 186 

Sense  before  sound.     Reason  must  rule 187 

Not  Baconian.     The  body  despised 188 

Pedagogic  writings  of  Port- Royalists          189 

Amauld.     Nicole           190 

Light  from  within.     Teach  by  the  Senses 191 

Best  teaching  escapes  common  tests 192 

Studying  impossible  without  a  will...         I93 

Against  making  beginnings  bitter         I94 

Port-Royal  advance.     Books  on  Port-Royal         195 

Rollin,  Compayre,  &c 196 

Chapter  XIL— Some  English  Writers  before  Locke       197-218 

Birth  of  Realism 198 

Realist  Leaders  not  schoolmasters 199 

John  Brinsley.     Charles  Hoole , 200 

Hoole's  Realism        201 

Art  of  teaching.     Abraham  Cowley     ... 202 

Authors  and  schoolmasters.     J.  Dury        203 

Disorderly  use  of  our  natural  faculties  ...         204 

Dury's  watch  simile  ...         ...         ...         ...         205 

Senses,  ist ;   imagination,  2nd  ;   memory,  3rd           ...         ...  206 

Petty's  battlefield  simile       .►.         ...  207 

Petty's  realism 208 

Cultivate  observation           ...         ...         ...  209 

Petty  on  children's  activities     210 

Hand-work.     Education  for  all.     Bellers...         ...         ...  211 

Milton  and  School-Reform        212 

Milton  as  spokesman  of  Christian  Realists            213 

Language  an  instrument.     Object  of  education          214 

Milton  for  barrack  life  and  Verbal  Realism          ...        ...  215 

Milton  succeeded  as  man  not  master    ...        ..        ...        ,„  zid 


CONTENTS. 


XXVll 


Chapter  XII — continued. 

He  did  not  advance  Science  of  Education... 
Milton  an  educator  of  mankind  ...         .„ 

Chapter  XIII.— Locke.    (1632- 1704.) 
Locke's  two  main  characteristics 
1st,  Truth  for  itself.     2nd,  Reason  for  Truth 
Locke's  definition  of  knowledge 
Knowing  without  seeing 
"  Discentem  credere  oportet  "  ... 
Locke's  "  Knowledge  "  and  the  schoolmaster's 

*•  Knowledge  "  in  Geography 

For  children,  health  and  habits       , 

Everything  educative  forms  habits       

Confusion  about  special  cases.     Wax        ... 

Locke  behind  Comenius 

Humanists,  Realists,  and  Trainers 

Caution  against  classifiers  

Locke  and  development       

Was  Locke  a  utilitarian  ?  ...         

Utilitarianism  defined  

Locke  not  utilitarian  in  education        

Locke's  Pisgah  Vision  

Science  and  education.     Names  of  books 

Chapter  XIV. — ^Jean- Jacques  Rousseau.    (1712-1 

Middle  Age  system  fell  in  i8th  century 

Do  the  opposite  to  the  usual  

Family  life.     No  education  before  reason 
Rousseau  "neglects"  essentials.     Lose  time 
Early  education  negative 

Childhood  the  sleep  of  reason         

Start  from  study  of  the  child     

Rousseau's  paradoxes  un-English 

Man  the  corrupter.     The  three  educations 

The  aim,  living  thoroughly 

Children  not  small  men...         

Schoolmasters'  contempt  for  childhood 
Schoolroom  rubbish        .^         .».         — 


PAGE 



217 

••• 

...   218 

^ 

219-238 

... 

...   220 



221 

•  *« 

...   222 

•••      ••« 

223 

... 

...   224 



225 

... 

...   226 



227 

... 

...   228 

•••      ••« 

229 

... 

...   230 

... 

231 

... 

...   232 

233 

... 

...   234 

235 

... 

...   236 

237 

... 

...   238 

-1778.)... 

239-272 

... 

...   240 



241 

... 

...   242 

.^ 

243 

... 

...   244 



245 

... 

...  246 

... 

247 

... 

...  248 



249 

... 

...  250 

... 

251 

... 

..  253 

XXVlll 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter  XIV — continued. 

Ideas  before  symbols...         ...         .. 

Right  ideas  for  children 

Child -gardening.     Child's  activity  .. 
No  sitting  still  or  reading 
Memory  without  books 
Use  of  the  senses  in  childhood  ... 
Intellect  based  on  the  senses  ^ 

Cultivation  of  the  senses 

Music  and  drawing   ... 

Drawing  from  objects.     Morals 

Contradictory  statements  on  morals 

The  material  world  and  the  moral 

Shun  over-directing  ... 

Lessons  out  of  school.     Questioning.     At  12. 

No  book-learning.     Study  of  nature 

Against  didactic  teaching 

Rousseau  exaggerates  about  self-teaching  ,.. 

Learn  with  effort... 

Hand- work.     The  "  New  Education  " 

The  Teacher's  business ►. 


Chapter  XV. — Basedow  and  the  Philanthropinum 

Basedow  tries  to  mend  religion  and  teaching . . . 
Reform  needed.     Subscription  for  *'  Elementary" 

A  journey  with  Goethe 

Goethe  on  Basedow 

The  Philanthropinum  opened    ... 

Basedow's  "  Elementary  "  and  "  Book  of  Method  " 

Subjects  to  be  taught      

French  and  Latin.     Religion  

*'  Fred's  Journey  to  Dessau  " 

At  the  Philanthropinum       

Methods  in  the  Philanthropinum  

The  Philanthropinum  criticised       

Basedow's  improvements  in  teaching  children 
Basedow's  successors 
Kant  on  the  Philanthropinum    ... 
Influence  of  Philanthropinists 


PAGE 

253 

-   254 

255 
,   256 

257 
.   258 

259 

,  260 
261 
262 
263 
264 
265 

,  266 
267 

,  268 
269 
270 
271 

.  272 

273-289 
274 

275 
276 

277 
278 
279 
280 
281 
282 
283 
284 
285 
286 
287 
288 
289 


CONTENTS.  Xxix 

PAGE 

Chapter  XVI.— Pestalozzi.     (1746-1827.)       .^        ^        290-383 

Kis  childhood  and  student-liie        ... 201 

A  Radical  Student          ....                                    "  or... 

••"             •••             •••             •»«             ...  Zy2 

Turns  farmer.     Bluntschli's  warning         293 

New  ideas  in  farming.     A  love  letter 294 

Resolutions.     Buys  land  and  mairies         20? 

Pestalozzi  turns  to  education      206 

Neuhof  filled  with  children 297 

Appeal  for  the  new  Institution 298 

Bankruptcy.     The  children  sent  away       299 

Eighteen  years  of  poverty  and  distress 300 

"  Gertrude  "  to  the  rescue.     Pestalozzi's  religion            ...  301 

He  turns  author.     "  E.  H.  of  Hermit  "          302 

Pestalozzi's  belief      ...         ...         ...         ...         ,^          ...  303 

The  "  Hermit "  a  Christian       ...         ...  304 

Success  of  "  Leonard  and  Gertrude  "         305 

Gertrude's  patience  tried            ...         ...         306 

Being  and  doing  before  knowing    ...         ...         ...         ...  307 

Pestalozzi's  severity.     Women  Commissioners           ...         ...  308 

Pestalozzi's  seven  years  of  authorship         ...         309 

"  Citizen  of  French  Republic."     Doubts        310 

Waiting.     Pestalozzi's  "  Inquiry " 311 

Pestalozzi's  "  Fables  " 312 

Pestalozzi's  own  principles  ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  313 

Pestalozzi's  return  to  action        ...         ...         ...         314 

The  French  at  Stanz 315 

Pestalozzi  at  Stanz          ...         ...         316 

Success  and  expulsion          „          ...         ...         ...        ...  317 

At  Stanz :    Pestalozzi's  own  account...  318-332 

VpJue  of  the  five  months' experience          ..,         ...         ...  333 

Pestalozzi  a  strange  Schoolmaster         ...         ...         ...         ...  334 

At  Burgdorf.     First  official  approval         335 

A  child's  notion  of  Pestalozzi's  teaching          336 

Pestalozzi  engineering  a  new  road  .; 337 

Psychologizing  instruction         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  33^ 

S(  hool  course.     Singing  ;  and  the  beautiful         339 

Pestalozzi's  poverty.     Kruesi  joins  him            340 

Pestalozzi's  assistants.     The  Burgdorf  Institute 34' 

Success  of  the  Burgdorf  Institute          34' 


XXX  CONTENTS. 

Chapter  X\l—c<mtittued.  P-**^^ 

Reaction.     Testalozzi  and  Napoleon  I      .~        .~        «.  343 

Fellenberg,     Pestalozzi  goes  to  Yverdun        344 

A  portrait  of  Pestalozzi         345 

Prussia  adopts  Pestalozzianism 34^ 

Ritter  and  others  at  Yverdun          347 

Causes  of  failure  at  Yverdun      34^ 

Report  made  by  Father  Girard       349 

Girard's  mistake.     Schmid  in  flight     35° 

Schmid's  return.     Pestalozzi's  fame  found  useful 351 

Dr.  Bell's  visiL     Death  of  Mrs.  Pestalozzi     352 

Works  republished.     Clindy.     Yverdun  left     Death    ...  353,  354 

New  aim  :   develop  organism 354 

True  dignity  of  man 355 

Education  for  all.     Mothers' part     Jacob's  Ladder 356 

Educator  only  superintends 357 

First,  moral  development           35^ 

Moral  and  religious  the  same          359 

Second,  intellectual  development          360 

Learning  by  *' intuition  " 361 

Buisson  and  JuUien  on  intuition           362 

Pestalozzi  and  Locke            3^3 

Subjects  for,  and  art  of,  teaching          364 

•'Mastery" 36S 

The  body's  part  in  education 366 

Learning  must  not  be  play 367 

Singing  and  drawing     ,...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  368 

Morfs  summing-up  ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  369 

Joseph  Payne's  summing-up      370 

The  "  two  nations."    Mother's  lessons     371 

Mistakes  in  teaching  children 372 

Children  and  their  teachers ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  373 

•' Preparatory  "  Schools 374 

Young  boys  ill  taught  at  school       375 

English  folk-schools  not  Pestalozzian 376 

Schools  judged  by  results 377 

Pupil-teachers.     Teaching  not  educating        378 

Ix)we  or  Pestalozzi  ? 379 

Chief  force,  personality  of  the  teacher ^         ..,  38a 

English  care  for  unessentials           .»,«««,.         .^  381 


CONTENTS.  xxxi 


Chapter  XVI — continued. 
Aim  at  the  ideal  ... 
Use  of  theorists.     Books      ,„ 


PAGE 
382 


Chapter  XVII.— Friedrich  Froebel.     (1783-1852.)  ...        384-413 

Difficulty  in  understanding  Froebel           385 

A  lad's  quest  of  unity     ...         ^85 

Froebel  wandering  without  rest      3S7 

Finds  his  vocation.     With  Pestalozzi 388 

Froebel  at  the  Universities 389 

Through  the  Freiheits-krieg.     Mineralogy      390 

The  "  New  Education  "  started      391 

At  Keilhau.      "  Education  of  Man "  published          392 

Froebel  fails  in  Switzerland...         ...         ...         ...         ...  393 

The  first  Kindergarten    ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  394 

Froebel's  last  years.     Prussian  edict  against  him.     His  end  395 

Author's  attitude  towards  Reformers    ...         ...         ...         ...  396 

Difficulties  with  Froebel       397 

"Cui  omnia  unum  sunt  "           398 

Froebel's  ideal           1^99 

Theory  of  development  ...         ...         ...         400 

Development  through  self-activity  ...         ,         ...  401 

True  idea  found  in  Nature         402 

God  acts  and  man  acts         ...         ...     •    ...  403 

The  formative  and  creative  instinct      ...         404 

Rendering  the  inner  outer 405 

Care  for  "  young  plants."     Kindergarten        .» 406 

Child's  restlessness  :   how  to  use  it. 407 

Employments  in  Kindergarten  ...         408 

No  schoolwork  in  Kindergarten      409 

Without  the  idea  the  "  gifts  "  fail         4^0 

The  New  Education  and  the  old 411 

The  old  still  vigorous •••  412 

Science  the  thought  of  God.     Some  Froebelians 413 


Chapter  XVIII.— Jacotot,  a  Methodizer.    (1770-1840.)  414-438 

Self-teaching «         ...         —          A^S 

1.  All  can  learn  ...         ^        »        .«        .~        .«  •••    4i6 
8 


XXXll 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter  Will— condniieJ. 

2.  Everyone  can  teach         ~ 

Can  he  teach  facts  he  does  not  know  ? 

Languages?    Sciences?       

Arts  such  as  drawing  and  music  ?         

True  teacher  within  the  learner      

Training  rather  than  teaching 

3.  "  Tout  est  dans  tout."    Quidlibet  ex  quolibet 

Connexion  of  knowledges  

Connect  with  model  book.     Memorizing 

Ways  of  studying  the  model  bbok        

Should  the  book  be  made  or  chosen  ?         

Robertsonian  plan 

Hints  for  exercises 

The  good  of  having  learnt 

The  old  Cambridge  "  mathematical  man  " 
Waste  of  memory  at  school 

How  to  stop  this  waste        

Multum,  non  multa.     De  Morgan.     Helps.     Stephen 

Jacotot's  plan  for  reading  and  waiting        

For  the  mother-tongue 

Method  of  investigation 

Jacotot's  last  days  ... 


PAGE 

,  418 
419 

,  420 
4.21 

,  422 
423 

•  424 
42s 

.  426 
427 

.  428 
429 

•  430 
431 

.  432 

433 
.  434 

435 
.  436 

437 
.  438 


Chapter  XIX.— Herbert  Spencer      

Same  knowledge  for  discipline  and  use  ? 
Different  stages,  different  knowledges 
Relative  value  of  knowledges    ...         ... 

Knowledge  for  self-preservation      

Useful  knowledge  versus  the  classics   ... 
Special  instruction  versus  education 
Scientific  knowledge  and  money-making 
Knowledge  about  rearing  offspring... 
Knowledge  of  history  :   its  nature  and  use 
Use  of  history 

Employment  of  leisure  hours 

Poetry  and  the  Arts 

More  than  science  needed  for  complete  living. 
Objections  to  Spencer's  curriculum  ... 


.439-469 

...     440 

441 
...     442 

443 
...     444 

445 
...     446 

447 
...     448 

449 
...     450 

451 
...     452 

453 


CONTENTS. 


XXXlll 


Chapter  XTX — continued. 

Citizen's  duties.     Things  not  to  teach 

Need  of  a  science  of  education        ...         

Hope  of  a  science 

From  simple  to  complex  :   known  to  unknown    ... 

Connecting  schoolwork  with  life  outside         

Books  and  life  ...         ...         ...         

R'istakes  in  grammar  teaching  ...         ...         

From  indefinite  to  definite  :   concrete  to  abstract... 
The  Individual  and  the  Race.     Empirical  beginning 
Against  "telling."     Effect  of  bad  teaching 

learning  should  be  pleasurable...         ...         

Can  learning  be  made  interesting? 

Apathy  from  bad  teaching         

Should  learning  be  made  interesting  ?        

Difference  between  theory  and  practice  

Importance  of  Herbert  Spencer's  work     .., 

Chapter  XX. — Thoughts  and  Suggestions 

Want  of  an  ideal        

Get  pupils  to  work  hard 

For  this  arouse  interest.     Wordsworth      

Interest  needed  for  activity        

Teaching  young  children      .^ 

Value  of  pictures 

Dr.  Vater  at  Leipzig...         .„ 

Dr.  Vogel  and  Dr.  Vater  

First  knowledge  of  numbers.     Grub6 

Measuring  and  weighing.     Reading-books     

Respect  for  books.     Grammar.     Reading 

Silent  and  Vocal  Reading  

Memorising  poetry.     Composition... 

Correcting  exercises.     Three  kinds  of  books 

No  epitomes  ...         ...         ...         •■•         

Ar^ham,  Bacon,  Goldsmith,  against  them       

Arouse  interest.     Dr.  Arnold's  historical  primer  ... 

A  Macaulay,  not  Mangnall,  wanted 

Beginnings  in  history  and  geography         

Tales  of  Travelers  

Results  positive  and  negative  ...        .~ 


...    454 

455 
.-     45^> 

457 
...    458 

459 
...     460 

461 
...     462 

463 
...    464 

465 
...     466 

467 
...    468 

469 

470-491 

471 
472 
473 
474 
475 
476 

477 
478 
479 
480 
481 
482 
483 
484 
485 
4S6 
487 
4S8 
4S9 
490 
491 


XXxiv  CONTENTS. 

Chapter  XXI.  —The  Schoolmaster's  Moral  and  Rellffious     pagb 

Influence 492-503 

Master's  power,  how  gained  and  lost         493 

Masters,  the  open  and  the  reserved      494 

Danger  of  excess  either  way 495 

High  ideal.     Danger  of  low  practice 496 

Harm  from  overwoiking  teachers 497 

Refuge  in  routine  work.     Small  schools         ...         ...         ...  498 

Influence  through  the  Sixth.     Day  schools  wanted         ...  499 

Teaching  religion  in  England  and  Germany 500 

Religious  teaching  connected  with  worship  501 

Education  to  goodness  and  piety  ...         ...         ...         ...  502 

How  to  avoid  narrowmindedness    .^         ., 503 

Chapter  XXII.— Conclusion       .^ 504-526 

A  growing  science  of  education       m.         ...         ...         ...  505 

Jesuits  the  first  Reformers  506 

The  Jesuits  cared  for  more  than  classics 507 

Rabelais  for  "  intuition  "  508 

Montaigne  for  educating  mind  and  body   ...        ...        ...  509 

17th  century  reaction  against  books      ...         ...         ...         ...  510 

Reaction  not  felt  in  schools  and  the  Universities...         ...  511 

Comenius  begins  science  of  education  ...         ...         ...         ...  512 

Locke's  teacher  a  disposer  of  influence      ...         ...         ...  513 

Locke  and  public  schools.     Escape  from  "  idols  "     514 

Rousseau's  clean  sweep        ...         ...         ...  515 

Benevolence  of  Nature.     Man  disturbs  516 

We  arrange  sequences,  capitalise  ideas      ...         ...         ...  517 

Loss  and  gain  from  tradition 518 

Rousseau  for  observing  and  following        jig 

Rousseau  exposed  "  school-learning  " 520 

Function  of  "  things  "  in  education 521 

"  New  Education  "  started  by  Rousseau         522 

Drawing  out.     Man  and  the  other  animals  523 

Intuition.     Man  an  organism,  a  doer  and  creator      524 

Antithesis  of  Old  and  New  Education       525 

Drill  needed.     What  the  Thinkers  do  for  us 526 

Appendix.     Class    Matches.     Words  and   Things.     Books 

for  Teachers.  &c      —»•«»«„        527-547 


I 

EFFECTS  OF  THE   RENASCENCE. 


§  I.  The  history  of  education,   much  as   it  has   been 

hitherto  neglected,  especially  in  England,  must  have  a  great 
future  before  it.  If  we  ignore  the  Past  we  cannot  understand 
the  Present,  or  forecast  the  Future.  In  this  book  I  am 
going  to  speak  of  Reformers  or  Innovators  who  aimed  at 
changing  what  was  handed  down  to  them ;  but  the  Radical 
can  no  more  escape  from  the  Past,  than  the  Conservative 
can  stereotype  it.  It  acts  not  by  attraction  only,  but  no  less 
by  repulsion.  There  have  been  thinkers  in  latter  times  who 
have  announced  themselves  as  the  executioners  of  the  Past 
and  laboured  to  destroy  all  it  has  bequeathed  to  us.  They 
have  raised  the  ferocious  cry,  '■'■Vive  la  destruction !  Vive 
la  mort I  Place  d  Vavenirl  Hurrah  for  destruction! 
Hurrah  for  death  !  Make  room  for  the  world  that  is  to  be !" 
But  their  very  hatred  of  the  Past  has  brought  them  under 
Ihe  influence  of  it.  "  Do  just  the  opposite  of  what  has  been 
done  and  you  will  do  right,"  said  Rousseau ;  and  this  rule 
of  negation  would  make  the  Past  regulate  the  Present  and 
the  Future  no  less  than  its  opposite,  "  Do  always  what  is 
usual." 

If  we  cannot  get  free  from  the  Past  in  the  domain  of 
thought,  still  less  can  we  in  action.     Custom  is  to  all  our 


THE   RENASCENCE. 


No  escape  from  the  Past. 


activities  what  the  mainspring  is  to  the  watch.  We  may 
bring  forces  into  play  to  make  the  watch  go  faster  or  slower, 
but  if  we  took  out  the  mainspring  it  would  not  go  at  all. 
For  our  mainspring  we  are  indebted  to  the  Past. 

§  2.  In  studying  the  Past  we  must  give  our  special  at- 
tention to  those  periods  in  which  the  course  of  ideas  takes, 
as  the  French  say,  a  new  bend.*  Such  a  period  was  the 
Renascence.  Then  it  was  that  the  latest  bend  was  given  to 
the  educational  ideal  of  the  civilized  world ;  and  though  we 
seem  now  again  to  have  arrived  at  a  period  of  change,  we 
are  still,  perhaps  far  more  than  we  are  aware,  affected  by  the 
ideas  of  the  great  scholars  who  guided  the  intellect  of  Europe 
in  the  Revival  of  Learning. 

§  3.  From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 
century  the  balance  was  trembling  between  two  kinds  of 
culture,  and  the  fate  of  the  schoolboy  depended  on  the 
result.  In  this  century  men  first  got  a  correct  conception 
of  the  globe  they  were  inhabiting.  Hitherto  they  had  not 
even  professed  to  have  any  knowledge  of  geography ;  there 
is  no  mention  of  it  in  the  Trivium  and  Quadrivium  which 
were  then  supposed  to  form  the  cycle  of  things  known,  if  not 
of  things  knowable.  But  Columbus  and  Vasco  da  Gama 
were  grand  teachers  of  geography,  and  their  lessons  were 
learnt  as  far  as  civilization  extended. 

The  impetus  thus  given  to  the  study  of  the  earth  mighf, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  have  engrossed 
the  mind  of  Europe  with  the  material  world,  had  not  the 
leaning  to  physical  science  been  encountered  and  overcome 
by  an  impulse  derived  from  another  discovery.     About  the 

•  The  rest  of  this  chapter  was  published  in  the  SeptemV^r.  1S80 
number  of  Education.     Boston,  U.S. A. 


THE   RENASCENCE. 


Discovery  of  the  Classics. 


rime  of  the  discovery  of  America  there  also  came  to  light 
ihe  h'teratures  of  Greece  and  Rome. 

§  4.  When  I  speak  of  the  discovery  of  the  ancient  hte- 
ratures  as  rivalHng  that  of  America,  this  use  of  the  word 
•'  discovery  "  may  be  disputed.  It  may  be  urged  that  though 
the  Greek  language  and  literature  were  unknown  in  the  West 
of  Europe  till  they  were  brought  there  by  the  fugitives  after 
the  fall  of  Constantinople  in  1453,  yet  the  works  of  the  great 
Laiin  writers  had  always  been  known  in  Italy,  and  Dante 
declares  himself  the  disciple  of  Virgil.  And  yet  I  cannot 
give  up  the  word  "  discovery."  In  the  life  of  an  individual 
it  sometimes  happens  that  he  suddenly  acquires  as  it  were 
a  new  sense.  The  world  around  him  remains  the  same  as 
before,  but  it  is  not  the  same  to  him.  A  film  passes  from 
his  eyes,  and  what  has  been  ordinary  and  unmeaning 
suddenly  becomes  a  source  of  wonder  and  delight  to  him. 
Something  similar  happens  at  times  in  the  history  of  the 
general  mind ;  indeed  our  own  century  has  seen  a  remark- 
able instance  of  it.  In  reading  the  thoughts  of  great  writers 
of  earlier  times,  we  cannot  but  be  struck,  not  only  with  their 
ignorance  of  the  material  world,  but  also  with  their  ignorance 
of  their  ignorance.  Little  as  they  know,  they  often  speak  as  if 
they  knew  everything.  Newton  could  see  that  he  was  like  a 
child  discovering  a  few  shells  while  the  unexplored  ocean  lay 
before  him ;  but  in  those  days  it  required  the  intellect  of  a 
Newton  to  understand  this.  To  the  other  children  the  ocean 
seemed  to  conceal  nothing,  and  they  innocently  thought  that 
all  the  shells,  or  nearly  all,  had  been  picked  up.  It  was  re- 
served for  the  people  of  our  own  century  to  become  aware  of 
the  marvels  which  lie  around  us  in  the  material  world,  and  to 
be  fascinated  by  the  discovery.  If  the  human  race  could  live 
through  several  civilizations  without  opening  its  eyes  to  the 


THE  RENASCENCE. 


Mark  Pattison's  account  of  Renascence. 

wonders  of  the  earth  it  inhabits,  and  then  could  suddenly 
become  aware  of  them,  we  may  well  understand  its  retaining 
unheeded  the  literatures  of  Greece  and  Rome  for  centuries, 
and  at  length  as  it  were  discovering  them,  and  turning  to 
them  with  unbounded  enthusiasm  and  delight. 

As  students  of  education  we  can  hardly  attach  too  much 
importance  to  this  great  revolution.  For  nearly  three 
centuries  the  curriculum  in  the  public  schools  of  Europe 
remained  what  the  Renascence  had  made  it.  We  have 
again  entered  on  an  age  of  change,  but  we  are  still  much 
influenced  by  the  ideas  of  the  Renascence,  and  the  best 
way  to  understand  the  forces  now  at  work  is  to  trace  them 
where  possible  to  their  origin.  Let  us  then  consider  what 
the  Renascence  was,  and  how  it  affected  the  educational 
system. 

§  5.  In  endeavouring  to  understand  the  Renascence,  we 
cannot  do  better  than  listen  to  what  Mark  Pattison  says  of 
it  in  his  "  Life  of  Casaubon  " : — "  In  the  fifteenth  century 
was  revealed  to  a  world  which  had  hitherto  been  tramed  to 
logical  analysis,  the  beauty  of  literary  form.  The  conception 
of  style  or  finished  expression  had  died  out  with  the  pagan 
schools  of  rhetoric.  It  was  not  the  despotic  act  of  Justinian 
in  closing  the  schools  of  Athens  which  had  suppressed  it. 
The  sense  of  art  in  language  decayed  from  the  same  general 
causes  which  had  been  fatal  to  all  artistic  perception.  Ban- 
ished from  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  sixth  century  ox 
earlier,  the  classical  conception  of  beauty  of  form  re-entered 
the  circle  of  ideas  after  near  a  thousand  years  of  oblivion 
and  abeyance.  Cicero  and  Virgil,  Livius  and  Ovid,  had 
been  there  all  along,  but  the  idea  of  composite  harmony  on 
which  their  w^orks  were  constructed  was  wanting.  The 
restored  conception,  as  if  to  recoup  itself  for  its  long  sup- 


THE  RENASCENCE. 


Revival  of  taste  for  beauty  in  literature. 

pression,  took  entire  possession  of  the  mind  of  Europe. 
The  first  period  of  the  Renascence  passed  in  adoration  of 
the  awakened  beauty,  and  in  efforts  to  copy  and  multiply  it." 

§  6.  Here  Mark  Pattison  speaks  as  if  the  conception  of 
beauty  of  form  belonged  exclusively  to  the  ancients  and 
those  who  learnt  of  them.  This  seems  to  require  some 
abatement.  There  are  points  in  which  mediaeval  art  tar 
excelled  the  art  of  the  Renascence.  The  thirteenth  century, 
as  Archbishop  Trench  has  said,  was  "rich  in  glorious  creations 
of  almost  every  kind;"  and  in  that  century  our  great  English 
architect,  Street,  found  the  root  of  all  that  is  best  in  modern 
art.     (See  "Dublin  Afternoon  Lectures,"  1868.) 

But  there  are  expressions  of  beauty  to  which  the  Greeks, 
and  those  who  caught  their  spirit,  were  keenly  alive,  and 
to  which  the  people  of  the  Middle  Age  seem  to  have  been 
blind.  The  first  is  beauty  in  the  human  form ;  the  second 
is  beauty  in  literature. 

The  old  delight  in  beauty  in  the  human  form  has  never 
come  back  to  us.  Mr.  Ruskin  tells  us  we  are  an  ugly  race, 
with  ill-shapen  limbs,  and  well  pleased  with  our  ugliness 
and  deformity,  and  in  reply  we  only  mutter  something 
about  the  necessity  of  clothing  both  for  warmth  and 
decency.  But  as  to  the  other  expression  of  beauty, 
beauty  in  literature,  the  mind  of  Europe  again  became 
conscious  of  it  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries. 
The  re-awakening  of  this  sense  of  beauty  we  call  the 
Renascence. 

§  7.  Before  we   consider  the   effect   of  this  intellectual 

revolution  on  education,  let  us   be  sure  that  we  are  not 

"paying  ourselves  with  words,"  and  that  we  know  exactly 

what  we  mean  by  "  literature." 

(^hen  the  conceptions   of  an  individual  mind   are   ex- 


THE  RENASCENCE. 


What  is  Literature? 


pressed  in  a  permanent  form  of  words,  we  get  literature.' 
The  sum  total  of  all  the  permanent  forms  of  expression  in 
one  language  make  up  the  literature  of  that  language ; 
and  if  no  one  has  given  his  conceptions  a  form  which 
has  been  preserved,  the  language  is  without  a  literature. 
There  are  then  two  things  essential  to  a  literary  work: 
first,  the  conceptions  of  an  individual  mind;  second,  a 
permanent  form  of  expression.  Hence  it  follows  that  the 
domain  of  literature  is  distinct  from  the  domain  of  natural 
or  mathematical  science.  Science  does  not  give  us  the 
conceptions  of  an  individual  mind,  but  it  tells  us  what  every 
rational  person  who  studies  the  subject  must  think.  And 
science  is  entirely  independent  of  any  form  of  words :  a 
proposition  of  Euclid  is  science  ;  a  sonnet  of  Wordsworth's 
is  literature.  We  learn  from  Euclid  certain  truths  which 
we  should  have  learnt  from  some  one  else  if  Euclid  had 
never  existed,  and  the  propositions  may  be  cotiveyed  equally 
well  in  different  forms  of  words  and  in  any  language.  But 
a  sonnet  of  Wordsworth's  conveys  thought  and  feeling 
peculiar  to  the  poet;  and  even  if  the  same  thought  and 
feeling  were  conveyed  to  us  in  other  words,  we  should  lose 
at  least  half  of  what  he  has  given  us.  Poetry  is  indeed 
only  one  kind  of  literature,  but  it  is  the  highest  kind  ;  and 
what  is  true  of  literary  works  in  verse,  is  true  also  in  a 
measure  of  literary  works  in  prose.  So  great  is  the  differ- 
ence between  science  and  liteiature,  that  in  literature,  as 
the  first  Lord  Lytton  said,  the  best  books  are  generally  the 
oldest ;  in  science  they  are  the  newest. 

§  8,  At  present  we  are  concerned  with  literature  only. 
There  are  two  ways  in  which  a  work  of  literature  may 
excite  our  admiration  and  affect  our  minds.  These  are, 
first,  by  the  beauty  of  the  conceptions  it  conveys  to  us ;  and 


THE  RENASCENCE. 


Renascence  loved  beauty  of  expression. 

second,  by  the  beauty  of  the  language  in  which  it  conveys 
them.  In  the  greatest  works  the  two  excellences  will  be 
combined.* 

Now  the  literary  taste  proper  fastens  especially  on  the 
second  of  the  two,  />.,  on  beauty  of  expression  j  and  the 
Renascence  was  the  revival  of  literary  taste.  "  It  was,"  as 
Mark  Pattison  says,  "the  conception  of  style  or  finished 
expression  which  had  died  out  with  the  pagan  schools  of 
rhetoric,  and  which  re-entered  the  circle  of  ideas  after  a 
thousand  years  of  oblivion  and  abeyance."  If  we  lose 
sight  of  this,  we  shall  be  perplexed  by  the  unbounded 
enthusiasm  which  we  find  in  the  sixteenth  century  for  the 
old  classics.  What  great  evangel,  we  may  ask,  had  Cicero 
and  Virgil  and  Ovid,  or  even  Plato  and  the  Greek  drama- 
tists, for  men  who  lived  when  Europe  had  experienced  a 
thousand  years  of  Christianity?  The  answer  is  simple. 
They  had  none  whatever.  Their  thoughts  and  conceptions 
were  not  adapted  to  the  wants  of  the  new  world.  The 
civilization  of  the  Christian  nations  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury was  a  very  different  thing  from  the  civilization  of 
Greece  and  Rome.  It  had  its  own  thoughts,  its  own 
problems,  its  own  wants.  The  old-world  thoughts  could 
not  be  thought  over  again  by  it.  This  indeed  was  felt 
though  not  admitted  by  the  Renascence  scholars  them- 
selves. Had  it  been  the  thoughts  of  the  ancients  which 
seemed  to  them  so  valuable  they  would  have  made  some 
effort  to  diffuse  those  thoughts  in  the  languages  of  the 
modern  world.  Much  as  a  great  literary  work  loses  by 
translation,  there  may  still  be   enough  left  of  it  to  be  a 

•  On  the  nature  of  literature  see  Cardinal  Newman's  "Lectures  on 
the  Nature  of  a  University.     University  Subjects.     II.  Literature." 


THE  RENASCENCE. 


No  translations.    The  "educated. 

source  of  instruction  and  delight.  The  thoughts  of 
Aristotle,  conveyed  in  a  Latin  translation  of  an  Arabic 
translation,  profoundly  affected  the  mind  of  Europe  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  Bible,  or  Book  par  excellence,  is  knovn 
to  few  indeed  in  its  original  form.  Some  great  writers — Cer- 
vantes, and  Shakespeare,  and  the  author  of  the  "  Arabian 
Nights" — please  and  instruct  nations  who  know  not  the 
sound  of  the  languages  wherein  their  works  are  composed. 
If  then  the  great  writers  of  Greece  and  Rome  had  been 
valued  for  their  matter,  their  works  would  have  been. trans- 
lated by  the  Renascence  scholars  as  the  Bible  was  translated 
by  the  Reformers,  and  the  history  of  modern  education  would 
have  taken  a  very  different  turn  from  that  which  awaited 
it.  But  it  was  not  so.  The  Renascence  scholars  did  all 
they  could  to  discourage  translations.  For  the  grand 
discovery  which  we  call  the  Revival  of  Learning  was,  not 
that  the  ancients  had  something  to  say,  but  that  whatever 
they  had  to  say  they  knew  how  to  say  it. 

§  9.  And  thus  it  happens  that  in  the  period  of  change, 
when  Europe  was  re-arranging  its  institutions,  developing  new 
ideas  and  settling  into  new  grooves  of  habit,  we  find  the  men 
most  influential  in  education  entirely  fascinated  by  beauty 
of  expression,  and  this  in  two  ancient  languages,  so  that  the 
one  thing  needful  for  the  young  seemed  to  them  an  intro- 
duction to  the  study  of  ancient  writings.  The  inevitable 
consequence  was  this :  education  became  a  mere  synonym 
for  instruction  in  Latin  and  Greek.  The  only  ideal  set  up 
for  the  "  educated  "  was  the  classical  scholar. 

§  10.  Perhaps  the  absurdity  of  taking  this  ideal,  an 
ideal  which  is  obviously  fitted  for  a  small  class  of  men  only, 
and  proposing  it  for  general  adoption,  was  partly  concealed 
from  the  Renascence  scholars  by  the  peculiar  circumstances 


THE   RENASCENCE. 


Spread  of  literature  by  printing. 

of  their  age.  No  doubt  they  thought  literature  would  in 
the  future  be  a  force  capable  of  much  wider  application 
than  it  had  ever  been  before.  True,  literature  had  till 
then  affected  a  small  class  only.  Literature  meant  books, 
books  meant  MSS.,  and  MSS.  were  rare  and  costly.  Litera- 
ture, the  embodiment  of  grand  thoughts  in  grand  words, 
had  existed  before  letters,  or  at  least  without  letters.  The 
Homeric  poems,  for  example,  had  been  known  to  thousands 
who  could  not  read  or  write.  But  beauty  of  expression 
naturally  got  associated  and  indeed  confounded  with  the 
art  by  which  it  was  preserved ;  so  the  creations  of  the  mind, 
when  embodied  in  particular  combinations  of  words,  ac- 
quired the  name  of  literature  or  letters,  and  became  almost 
exclusively  the  affair  of  those  who  had  opportunities  of  study, 
opportunities  afforded  only  to  the  few.  During  the  Middle 
Ages  every  one  who  could  read  wa&  allowed  his  "  privilege 
of  clergy;"  that  is,  he  was  assumed  to  be  a  clergyman. 
Literature  then  was  not  thought  of  as  a  means  of  instruction. 
But  at  the  very  time  that  the  beauty  of  the  ancient  writings 
dawned  on  the  mind  of  Europe,  a  mechanical  invention 
seemed  to  remove  all  hindrances  to  the  spread  of  literature. 
The  scholars  seized  on  the  printing  press  and  thought  by 
means  of  it  to  give  all  "the  educated"  a  knowledge  of 
classics. 

§  1 1.  We  cannot  help  speculating  what  would  have  been 
the  effect  of  the  discovery  of  printing  if  it  had  been  made  at 
another  time.  As  there  may  be  literature  without  books,  so 
there  may  be  books  without  Uterature.  If  at  the  time  of 
the  invention  of  printing  there  had  been  no  literature,  no 
creations  of  individual  minds  embodied  in  pennanent  forms 
of  speech,  books  might  have  been  used  as  apparatus  in  a 
mental  gymnasium,  or  they  might  have   been  made   the 


lO  THE  RENASCENCE. 


School  course  settled  before  Bacon. 


means  of  conveying  information.  But  just  then  the  intellect 
of  Europe  was  tired  of  mental  gymnastics.  It  had  taken 
exercise  in  the  Trivium  like  a  squirrel  in  its  revolving  cage, 
and  was  vexed  to  find  it  made  no  progress.*  As  for  infor- 
mation there  was  little  to  be  had.  The  age  of  observation 
and  of  physical  science  was  not  yet.  So  the  printing  press 
was  entirely  at  the  service  of  the  new  passion  for  literature 
and  the  scholars  dreamed  of  the  general  diffusion  of  hterary 
culture  by  means  of  printed  books. 

§  12.  For  some  two  centuries  the  literary  spirit  had 
supreme  control  over  the  intellect  of  Europe,  and  the 
literary  spirit  could  then  find  satisfaction  nowhere  but  in 
the  study  of  the  ancient  classics.  The  natural  consequence 
was  that  throughout  this  period  the  "  educated  man "  was 
supposed  to  be  identified  with  the  classical  scholar.  The 
great  rival  of  the  literary  spirit,  the  scientific  spirit  which 
cares  for  nothing  but  sequences  independent  of  the  human 
mind,  began  to  show  itself  early  in  the  seventeenth  century : 
its  first  great  champion  was  Francis  Bacon.  But  by  this 
time  the  school  course  of  study  had  been  settled,  and  two 
centuries  had  to  elapse  before  the  scientific  spirit  could 
unsettle  it  again.  Even  now  when  we  speak  of  a  man  as 
"  well-educated "  we  are  commonly  understood  to  mean 
that  in  his  youth  he  was  taught  the  two  classical  languages. 

§  13.    The  taking  of  the  classical   scholar  as  the   only 

•  I  see  Carlyle  has  used  a  similar  metaphor  in  the  same  connexion  : 
"  Consider  the  old  schoolmen  and  their  pilgrimage  towards  Truth  !  the 
faithfullest  endeavour,  incessant  unweaiied  motion  ;  often  great  natural 
vigour,  only  no  progress ;  nothing  but  antic  feats  of  one  limb  poised 
against  the  other ;  there  they  balanced,  somer.-eted,  and  made  postures  : 
at  liest  g)Tated  swiftly  with  some  pleasure  like  spinning  dervishes  and 
ended  where  they  began." — Characterisiia,  Misc.,  vol.  iii,  5. 


THE   RENASCENCE.  II 

First  defect:  Learner  above  Doer. 

ideal  of  the  educated  man  has  been  a  fruitful  source  of  evil 
ill  the  history  of  education. 

I.  This  ideal  exalted  the  learner  above  the  doer.  As  far 
back  as  Xenophon,  we  find  a  contest  between  the  passive 
ideal  and  the  active,  between  the  excellence  which  depends 
on  a  knowledge  of  what  others  have  thought  and  done  and 
the  excellence  which  comes  of  thinking  and  doing.  But 
the  excellence  derived  from  learning  had  never  been  highly 
esteemed.  To  be  able  to  repeat  Homer's  poetry  was 
regarded  in  Greece  as  we  now  regard  a  pleasing  accomplish- 
ment ;  but  the  dignity  of  the  learned  man  as  such  was  not 
within  the  range  of  Greek  ideas.  Many  of  the  Romans 
after  they  began  to  study  Greek  literature  certainly  piqued 
themselves  on  being  good  Greek  scholars,  and  Cicero 
occasionally  quotes  with  all  the  airs  of  a  pedant ;  but  so 
thoroughly  was  the  contrary  ideal,  the  ideal  of  the  doer, 
established  at  Rome,  that  nobody  ever  dreamt  of  placing  its 
rival  above  it.  In  the  decline  of  the  Empire,  especially  at 
Alexandi-ia,  we  find  for  the  first  time  honours  paid  to  the 
learned  man  ;  but  he  was  soon  lost  sight  of  again.  At  the 
Renascence  he  burst  into  sudden  blaze,  and  it  was  then 
discovered  that  he  was  what  every  man  would  wish  to  be. 
Thus  the  Renascence  scholars,  notwithstanding  their  ad 
miration  of  the  great  nations  of  antiquity,  set  up  an  ideal 
which  those  nations  would  heartily  have  despised.  The 
schoolmaster  very  readily  adopted  this  ideal ;  and  schools 
liave  been  places  of  learning,  not  training,  ever  since. 

§  14.  II.  The  next  defect  I  observe  in  the  Renascence 
ideal  is  this :  it  attributes  to  Uterature  more  direct  power 
over  common  life  than  literature  has  ever  had,  or  is  ever 
likely  to  have. 

1  say  direct  power,  for  indirectly  literature  is  one  of  the 


12  THE  RENASCENCE. 


Second :  Overestimate  of  literature. 


grand  forces  which  act  on  all  of  us ;  but  it  acts  on  us  through 
others,  its  most  important  function  being  to  affect  great 
intellects,  the  minds  of  those  who  think  out  and  act  out 
important  changes.  Its  direct  action  on  the  mass  of  mankind 
is  after  all  but  insignificant,  We  have  seen  that  literature 
consists  in  permanent  forms  of  words^  expressing  the 
conceptions  of  individual  minds ;  and  these  forms  will  be 
studied  only  by  those  who  are  interested  in  the  conceptions 
or  find  pleasure  in  the  mode  in  which  they  are  expressed. 
Now  the  vast  majority  of  ordinary  people  are  without  these 
inducements  to  literary  study.  They  take  a  keen  interest 
in  everything  connected  with  their  relations  and  intimate 
friends,  and  a  weaker  interest  in  the  thinkings  and  sayings 
and  doings  of  every  one  else  who  is  personally  known  to 
them ;  but  as  to  the  mental  conceptions  of  those  who  lived 
in  other  times,  or  if  now  alive  are  not  known  even  by  sight, 
the  ordinary  person  is  profoundly  indifferent  to  them; 
and  of  course  delight  in  expression,  as  such,  is  out  of  the 
question.  The  natural  consequence  is  that  the  habit  of 
reading  books  is  by  no  means  common.  Mark  Pattison 
observes  that  there  are  few  books  to  be  found  in  most 
English  middle-class  homes,  and  he  says :  "  The  dearth  of 
books  is  only  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  the  mental 
torpor  which  reigns  in  those  destitute  regions  "  (see  "  Fort- 
nightly Review,"  November,  1877).  I  much  doubt  if  he 
would  have  found  more  books  in  the  middle-class  homes  of 
the  Continent.  There  is  only  one  kind  of  reading  that  is 
nearly  universal — the  reading  of  newspapers;  and  the 
newspaper  lacks  the  element  of  permanence,  and  belongs 
to  the  domain  of  talk  rather  than, of  literature. 

Even  when  we  get  among  the  so-called  "  educated,"  we 
find  that  tliose  who  care  for  literature  form  a  very  small 


v 


THE   RENASCENCE.  I3 

Literary  taste  not  common. 

minority.  (The  rest  have  of  course  read  Shakespeare  and 
Milton  and  Walter  Scott  and  Tennyson,  but  they  do  not 
read  i/iem.j  The  lion's  share  of  our  time  and  thoughts  and 
interesfsniust  be  given  to  our  business  or  profession, 
whatever  that  may  be;  and  in  few  instances  is  this  con- 
nected with  literature.  For  the  rest,  whatever  time  or 
thought  a  man  can  spare  from  his  calling  is  mostly  given  to 
his  family,  or  to  society,  or  to  some  hobby  which  is  not 
literature. 

And  love  of  literature  is  not  shown  in  such  reading  as  is 
common.  The  literary  spirit  shows  itself,  as  I  said,  in 
appreciating  beauty  of  expression,  and  how  far  beauty  of 
expression  is  cared  for  we  may  estimate  from  the  fact  that 
few  people  think  of  reading  anything  a  second  time.  The 
ordinary  reader  is  profoundly  indifferent  about  style,  and 
will  not  take  the  trouble  to  understand  ideas.  He  keeps  to 
periodicals  or  light  fiction,  which  enables  the  mind  to  loll  in 
its  easy  chair  (so  to  speak)  and  see  pass  before  it  a  series  of 
pleasing  images.  An  idea,  as  Mark  Pattison  says,  "  is  an 
excitant,  comes  from  mind  and  calls  forth  mind;  an  image 
is  a  sedative;"  and  most  people  when  they  take  up  a  book 
are  seeking  a  sedative. 

So  literature  is  after  all  a  very  small  force  in  the  lives 
of  most  men,  and  perhaps  even  less  in  the  hves  of  most 
women.  Why  then  are  the  employments  of  the  school- 
room arranged  on  the  supposition  that  it  is  the  grand  force 
of  all?  The  reason  is,  that  we  have  inherited  from  the 
R  enascence  a  false  notion  of  the  function  of  literature. 

§  15.  III.  I  must  now  point  out  a  fault  in  the  Re- 
nascence ideal  which  is  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  of  all. 
Those  by  whom  this  ideal  was  set  up  were  entirely  possessed 
by  an  enthusiasm  for  literature,  and  they  made  the  mistake 
4 


14  THE   RENASCENCE. 


Third:  Literature  banished  from  school. 


of  attributing  to  literature  a  share  in  general  culture  which 
literature  seems  incapable  of  taking.  After  this  we  could 
little  have  expected  that  the  new  ideal  would  exclude 
literature  from  the  schoolroom,  and  yet  so  it  has  actually 
turned  out. 

As  a  literary  creation  contains  the  conceptions  of  an 
individual  mind  expressed  in  a  permanent  form  of  words,  it 
exists  only  for  those  who  can  understand  the  words  or  at 
least  the  conceptions. 

From  this  it  follows  that  literature  for  the  young  must 
have  its  expression  in  the  vernacular.  The  instances  are 
rare  indeed  in  which  any  one  below  the  age  of  fifteen  or 
sixteen  (perhaps  I  might  put  the  limit  a  year  or  two  higher) 
understands  any  but  the  mother  tongue.  In  the  mother 
tongue  indeed  some  forms  of  literature  exercise  a  great 
influence  over  young  minds.  Ballad  literature  seems 
especially  to  belong  to  youth,  the  youth  of  nations  and 
of  individuals.  Aristotle  educated  Alexander  with  Homer  ; 
and  we  can  easily  imagine  the  effect  which  the  Iliad  must 
have  had  on  the  young  Greeks.  Although  in  the  days  of 
Plato  instruction  was  not  confined  to  literature,  he  gives 
this  account  of  part  of  the  training  in  the  Athenian  schools  : 
•'  Placing  the  pupils  on  benches,  the  instructors  make  them 
read  and  learn  by  heart  the  poems  of  good  poets  in  which 
are  many  moral  lessons,  many  tales  and  eulogies  and  lays 
of  the  brave  men  of  old ;  that  the  boys  may  imitate  them 
with  emulation  and  strive  to  become  such  themselves." 
Here  we  see  a  very  important  function  attributed  to 
literature  in  the  bringing  up  of  the  young;  but  the  hterature 
so  used  must  obviously  be  in  the  language  of  the  learners. 

The  influence  of  a  literary  work  may,  however,  extend  itself 
(ar  beyond  the  limits  of  its  own  language.     When  our  minds 


THE   RENASCENCE.  tj 

Translations  would  be  literature. 

can  receive  and  take  pleasure  in  the  conceptions  of  a  great 
writer,  he  may  speak  to  us  by  an  interpreter.  At  the 
Renascence  there  were  books  in  the  world  which  might  have 
affected  the  minds  of  the  young — Plutarch,  Herodotus,  and 
above  all  Homer.  But,  as  I  have  already  said,  it  was  not  the 
conceptions,  but  the  literary  form  of  the  ancients,  which 
seemed  to  the  Renascence  scholars  of  such  inestimable  value, 
so  they  refused  to  give  the  conceptions  in  any  but  the 
original  words.  "  Studying  the  ancients  in  translations,"  says 
Melancthon,  "  is  merely  looking  at  the  shadow."  He  could 
not  have  made  a  greater  mistake.  As  far  as  the  young  are 
concerned  the  truth  is  exactly  the  reverse.  The  translation 
would  give  the  substance  :  the  original  can  give  nothing  but 
the  shadow.  Let  us  take  the  experience  of  Mr.  Kinglake, 
the  author  of  "  Eothen."  This  distinguished  Eton  man, 
fired  by  his  remembrances  of  Homer,  visited  the  Troad. 
He  had,  as  he  tells  us,  "  clasped  the  Iliad  line  by  line  to  his 
brain  with  reverence  as  well  as  love."  Well  done,  Eton  !  we 
are  tempted  to  exclaim  when  we  read  this  passage  :  here  at 
least  is  proof  that  some  literature  was  taught  in  those  days 
of  the  dominion  of  the  classics.  But  stop  !  It  seems  that 
this  clasping  did  not  take  place  at  Eton,  but  in  happy  days 
before  Eton,  when  Kinglake  knew  no  Greek  and  read  trans- 
lations. "Heroic  days  are  these,"  he  writes,  "but  the  Dark 
Ages  of  schoolboy  life  come  closing  over  them.  I  suppose 
it's  all  right  in  the  end  :  yet,  by  Jove  !  at  first  sight  it  does 
seem  a  sad  intellectual  fall.  .  .  .  The  dismal  change  is 
ordained  and  thin  nieagre  Latin  (the  same  for  everybody) 
with  small  shreds  and  patches  of  Greek,  is  thrown  like  a 
pauper's  pall  over  all  your  early  lore;  instead  of  sweet 
knowledge,  vile  monkish  doggrel,  grammars  and  graduses, 
dictionaries  and  lexicons,  horrible  odds  and  ends  of  dead 


l6  THE  RENASCENCE. 


The  classics  not  written  for  children. 


languages  are  given  you  for  your  portion,  and  down  you  fall 
from  Roman  story  to  a  three-inch  scrap  of  'Scriptores 
Romani'— from  Greek  poetry  down,  down,  to  the  cold 
rations  of  'Poetse  Grseci,'  cut  up  by  commentators  and 
served  out  by  schoolmasters  !"     ("  Eothen,"  the  Troad) 

We  see  from  this  how  the  Renascence  ideal  had  the 
extraordinary  effect  of  banishing  literature  from  the  school- 
room. Literature  has  indeed  not  ceased  to  influence  the 
young ;  it  still  counts  for  much  more  in  their  lives  than  in 
the  lives  of  their  seniors  ;  but  we  all  know  who  are  the 
writers  who  affected  our  own  minds  in  childhood  and  youth, 
and  who  affect  the  minds  of  our  pupils  now — not  Eutropius 
or  Xenophon,  or  Caesar  or  Cicero,  but  Defoe  and  Swift  and 
Marryatt  and  Walter  Scott.  The  ancient  writings  which 
were  literature  to  Melancthon  and  Erasmus,  as  they  are 
still  to  many  in  our  universities  and  elsewhere,  can  never  be 
literature  to  the  young.  Most  of  the  classical  authors  read 
in  the  schoolroom  could  not  be  made  literature  to  young 
people  even  by  means  of  translations,  for  they  were  men  who 
wrote  for  men  and  women  only.  We  see  that  it  would  be 
absurd  to  make  an  ordinary  boy  of  twelve  or  fourteen  study 
Burke  or  Pope.  And  if  we  do  not  make  him  read  Burke, 
whose  language  he  understands,  why  do  we  make  him  read 
Cicero  whose  language  he  does  not  understand?  If  he  can- 
not appreciate  Pope,  vvhy  do  we  teach  him  Horace  ?  The 
Renascence  gives  us  the  explanation  of  this  singular  anomaly. 
The  scholars  of  that  age  were  so  delighted  with  the  "  com- 
posite harmony  "  of  the  ancient  classics  that  the  study  of  these 
classics  seemed  to  them  the  one  thing  worth  living  for.  The 
main,  if  not  the  only  object  they  kept  in  view  in  bringing  up 
the  young  was  to  gain  for  them  admission  to  the  treasure 
house ;  and  though  young  people  could  not  understand  the 


THE   RENASCENCE.  17 

Language  versus  Literature. 

ancient  writings  as  literature,  they  might  at  least  study 
them  as  language  and  thus  be  ready  to  enjoy  them  as  litera- 
ture in  after-life.  Thus  the  subject  of  instruction  in  the 
schoolroom  came  to  be,  not  the  classics  but,  the  classical 
languages.  The  classics  were  used  as  school  books,  but  the 
only  meaning  thought  of  was  the  meaning  of  the  detached 
word  or  at  best  of  the  detached  sentence.  You  ask  a  child 
learning  to  read  if  he  understands  what  he  is  reading  about, 
and  he  says,  "  I  can't  think  of  the  meaning  because  I  am 
thinking  of  the  words."  The  same  thing  happened  in  the 
schoolboy's  study  of  the  classics,  and  so  it  has  come  to  pass 
that  to  this  day  the  great  writers  of  antiquity  discharge  a 
humble  function  which  they  certainly  never  contemplated. 

"  Great  Caesar's  body  dead  and  turned  to  clay 
May  stop  a  hole  to  keep  the  wind  away, " 

And  great  Caesar's  mind  has  been  turned  to  uses  almost  as 
paltry.  He  has  in  fact  written  for  the  schoolroom  not  a 
commentary  on  the  Wars  of  Gaul — nothing  of  the  kind — 
but  simply  a  book  of  exercises  in  Latin  construing ;  and  an 
excellent  book  it  would  be  if  he  had  only  graduated  the 
difficulties  better. 

§  1 6.  IV.  There  is  yet  another  weakness  about  the 
Renascence  ideal — a  weakness  from  which  most  ideals  are 
free. 

Most  ideals  have  this  merit  at  least,  that  he  who  makes 
even  a  feeble  and  abortive  attempt  to  reach  them  is  benefited 
in  proportion  to  his  advance,  however  small  that  advance 
ma)  be.  If  he  fails  to  seize  the  coat  of  gold,  he  carries 
awaj'j  as  the  proverb  tells  us,  at  least  one  of  the  sleeves ;  or, 
to  use  George  Herbert's  metaphor — 

"  .     .     .     Who  aimeth  at  the  sky,    • 
Shoots  higher  far  than  he  who  means  a  tree." 


1 8  THE   RENASCENCE. 


Fourth:  Miss  as  good  as  a  mile. 

But  the  learned  ideal  has  not  even  this  advantage.  The 
first  stage,  the  study  of  the  ancient  languages,  is  so  totally 
different  from  the  study  of  the  ancient  literatures  to  which 
it  is  the  preliminary,  that  the  student  who  never  goes  beyond 
this  first  stage  either  gets  no  benefit  at  all,  or  a  benefit  which 
is  not  of  the  kind  intended.  Suppose  I  am  within  a  walk, 
though  a  long  one,  of  the  British  Museum,  and  hearing  of 
some  valuable  books  in  the  library,  which  I  can  see  nowhere 
else,  I  set  off  to  consult  them.  In  this  case  it  makes  no 
difference  to  me  how  valuable  the  books  are  if  I  do  not 
get  as  far  as  the  Museum.*  My  friends  may  comfort  me 
with  the  assurance  that  the  walk  must  have  done  me 
good.  Perhaps  so ;  but  I  left  home  to  get  a  knowledge  of 
certain  books,  not  to  exercise  my  legs.  Had  exercise 
been  my  object  I  should  probably  have  chosen  another 
direction. 

Now  schoolmasters,  since  the  Renascence,  have  been  in 
the  habit  of  leading  all  their  pupils  through  the  back  slums 
of  the  Seven  Dials  and  Soho  in  the  direction  of  the  British 
Museum,  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  taking  them  to  the 
library,  although  they  knew  full  well  that  not  one  pupil  in 
ten,  not  one  in  fifty,  would  ever  reach  the  door.  To  produce 
a  few  scholars  able  to  appreciate  the  classics  of  Greece  and 
Rome  they  have  sacrificed  everybody  else ;  and  according 
to  their  own  showing  they  have  condemned  a  large  portion 
of  the  upper  classes,  nearly  all  the  middle  classes,  and  quite 
all  the  poorer  classes  to  remain  "uneducated."  And,  ac- 
cording  to  the  theory  of  the  schoolroom,  one-half  of  the 


•  This  illustration  was  suggested  by  a  similar  one  in  Prof.  J.  R. 
Seeley*s  essay  "  On  the  Tieaching  of  English  "  in  his  Lectures  and  Essays, 
187a 


THE   RENASCENCE.  I9 

Fifth :  Neglect  of  children. 

human  race — the  women — have  not  been  supposed  to  need 
education.  For  them  "  accomplishments  "  have  been  held 
sufficient. 

§  17.  V.  In  conclusion  I  must  point  out  one  effect  of 
the  Renascence  ideal  which  seems  to  me  no  less  mischievous 
than  those  I  have  already  mentioned.  This  ideal  led  the 
schoolmasters  to  attach  little  importance  to  the  education  of 
children.  Directly  their  pupils  were  old  enough  for  Latin 
Grammar  the  schoolmasters  were  quite  at  home;  but  till 
then  the  children's  time  seemed  to  them  of  small  value,  and 
they  neither  knew  nor  cared  to  know  how  to  employ  it.  If 
the  little  ones  could  learn  by  heart  forms  of  words  which 
would  afterwards  "come  in  useful,"  the  schoolmasters  were 
ready  to  assist  such  learning  by  unsparing  application  of  the 
rod,  but  no  other  learning  seemed  worthy  even  of  a  caning. 
Absorbed  in  the  world  of  books  they  overlooked  the  world 
of  nature.  Galileo  complains  that  he  could  not  induce  them 
to  look  through  his  telescope,  for  they  held  that  truth  could 
be  arrived  at  only  by  comparison  of  MSS.  No  wonder  then 
that  ihey  had  so  little  sympathy  with  children,  and  did  not 
know  how  to  teach  them.  It  is  by  slow  degrees  that  we  are 
breaking  away  from  the  bad  tradition  then  established,  are 
getting  to  understand  children,  and  with  such  leaders  as 
Rousseau,  Pestalozzi,  and  Froebel,  are  investigating  the  best 
education  for  them.  QVe  no  longer  think  of  them  as  imma- 
ture men  and  women,  but  see  that  each  stage  has  its  own 
completeness,  and  that  there  is  a  perfection  in  childhood 
which  must  precede  the  perfection  of  manhood  just  as  truly 
as  the  flower  goes  before  the  fruTtT/  "Childhood,"  says 
Rousseau,  "has  its  own  ways  of  seeing,  feeling,  thinking;" 
and  it  is  by  studying  these  that  we  find  out  how  children 
should   be  educated.      Our  connexion  with  the  world  of 


20  THE  RENASCENCE. 

Child's  study  of  his  surroundings. 

nature  seems  much  closer  in  our  early  years  than  ever 
afterwards.  The  child's  mind  seems  drawn  out  to  its 
surroundings.  He  is  intensely  interested  in  the  new  world 
in  which  he  finds  himself,  and  whilst  so  many  of  us  grown 
people  need  a  flapper,  like  the  sages  of  Laputa,  to  call  our 
attention  from  our  own  thoughts  to  anything  that  meets  the 
eye  or  ear,  the  child  sees  and  hears  ever)'thing,  and  every- 
thing seen  or  heard  becomes  associated  in  his  mind  not  so 
much  with  thought  as  with  feeling.  Hence  it  is  that  we 
most  of  us  look  back  wistfully  to  our  early  days,  and  confess 
sorrowfully  that  though  years  may  have  brought  "  the  philo- 
sophic mind," 

"...     Nothing  can  bring  back  the  hour 
Of  splendour  in  the  grass,  of  glory  in  the  flower." 

The  material  world  then  seems  to  supply  just  those  objects, 
whether  birds,  beasts,  or  flowers,  by  which  the  child  is 
attracted,  and  on  which  his  faculties  will  therefore  be  most 
naturally  and  healthily  employed.  But  the  Renascence 
schoolmasters  had  little  notion  of  this.  If  you  think  that 
the  greatest  scholar  is  the  greatest  man,  you  will,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  place  at  the  other  end  of  the  scale  those 
who  are  not  scholars  at  all.  An  English  inspector,  who 
seems  to  have  thought  children  had  been  created  with  due 
regard  to  the  Revised  Code  of  the  Privy  Council,  spoke  of 
the  infants  who  could  not  be  classed  by  their  performances 
in  "the  three  R's"  as  "the  fag  end  of  the  school ;»  and  no 
doubt  the  Renascence  schoolmasters  considered  the  children 
the  fag  end  of  humanity.  The  great  scholars  were  indeed 
far  above  the  race  of  pedants ;  but  the  schoolmasters  who 
adopted  their  ideal  were  not.  And  what  is  a  pedant  ?  «  A  ( 
man  who  has  got  rid  of  his  brains  to  make  room  for  hi?/ 


THE   RENASCENCE.  21 

Aut  Caesar  aut  nihil. 

learning."*  /  The  pedantic  schoolmasters  of  the  Renascence 
wished  the  mind  of  the  pupil  to  be  cleared  of  everything 
elsej  that  it  might  have  room  for  the  languages  of  Greece 
and  Rome.  But  what  if  the  mind  failed  to  take  in  its 
destined  freight?  In  that  case  the  schoolmasters  had 
nothing  else  for  it,  and  were  content  that  it  should  go 
empty. 

•  Miss  J.  D.  Potter,  in  "Journal  of  Education."  London,  June,  1879 


33 


II. 

RENASCENCE    TENDENCIES. 


§  I.  In  considering  and  comparing  the  two  great  ejjochs 
of  intellectual  activity  and  change  in  modern  times,  viz.,  the 
sixteenth  century  and  the  nineteenth,  we  cannot  but  be 
struck  with  one  fundamental  difference  between  them. 

§  2.  It  will  affect  all  our  thoughts,  as  Sir  Henry  Maine  has 
said,  whether  we  place  the  Golden  Age  in  the  Past  or  in  the 
Future.  In  the  nineteenth  century  the  "good  time"  is 
supposed  to  be  "  coming,"  but  in  the  sixteenth  century  all 
thinkers  looked  backwards.  The  great  Italian  scholars  gazed 
with  admiration  and  envy  on  the  works  of  ancient  Greece 
and  Rome,  and  longed  to  restore  the  old  languages,  and  as 
much  as  possible  the  old  world,  so  that  such  works  might  be 
produced  again.  Many  were  suspected,  not  altogether  per- 
haps without  reason,  of  wishing  to  uproot  Christianity  itself,* 
that  they  might  bring  back  the  Golden  Age  of  Pericles. 

§  3.  At  the  same  time  another  movement  was  going  on, 
principally  in  Germany.  Here  too,  men  were  endeavouring 
to  throw  off  the  immediate  past  in  order  to  revive  the  remote 


•  See  Erasmus's  Ciceronianus,  or  account  of  it,  in  Henry  Barnard's 
Gert>:an  Teachers, 


RENASCENCE  TENDENCIES.  2$ 

Reviving  the  Past.    The  Scholars. 

past.  The  religious  reformers,  like  the  scholars,  wished  to 
restore  a  golden  age,  only  a  different  age,  not  the  age  of  the 
Antigone,  but  the  age  of  the  Apostles'  Creed.  Thus  it 
happened  that  the  scholars  and  the  reformers  joined 
in  attaching  the  very  highest  importance  to  the  ancient 
languages.  Through  these  languages,  and,  as  they  thought, 
through  them  alone,  was  it  possible  to  get  a  glimpse  into  the 
bygone  world  in  which  their  soul  delighted. 

§  4.  But  though  all  joined  in  extolling  the  ancient  writ- 
ings, we  find  at  the  Renascence  great  differences  in  the  way 
of  regarding  these  writings  and  in  the  objects  for  which  they 
were  employed.  A  consideration  of  these  differences  will 
help  us  to  understand  the  course  of  education  when  the 
Renascence  was  a  force  no  longer. 

§  5.  Very  powerful  in  education  were  the  great  scholars, 
of  whom  Erasmus  was  perhaps  the  greatest,  certainly  the 
most  celebrated.  In  devoting  their  lives  to  the  study  of  the 
ancients  their  object  was  not  merely  to  appreciate  literary 
style,  though  this  was  a  source  of  boundless  delight  to  them, 
but  also  to  understand  the  classical  writings  and  the  ancient 
world  through  them.  These  men,  whom  we  may  call  par 
excellence  the  Scholars,  cared  indeed  before  all  things  for 
literature ;  but  with  all  their  delight  in  the  form  they  never 
lost  sight  of  the  substance.  They  knew  the  truth  that 
Milton  afterwards  expressed  in  these  memorable  words: 
"Though  a  Hnguist  should  pride  himself  to  have  all  the 
tongues  that  Babel  cleft  the  world  into,  yet  if  he  have  not 
studied  the  solid  things  in  them  as  well  as  the  words  and 
lexicons,  he  were  nothing  so  much  to  be  esteemed  a  learned 
man  as  any  yeoman  or  tradesman  competently  wise  in  his 
mother  dialect  only."     (Tractate  to  Hartlib,  §  4). 

So  Erasmus  and  the  scholars  would  have  all  the  educated 


24  RENASCENCE  TENDENCIES. 

The  Scholars:  things  for  words. 

understand  the  classical  authors.  But  to  understand  words 
you  must  know  the  things  to  which  the  words  refer.  Thus 
the  Scholars  were  led  to  advocate  a  partial  study  of  things  a 
kind  of  reaUsm.  But  we  must  carefully  observe  a  peculiarity 
of  this  scholastic  reaUsm  which  distinguished  it  from  the 
realism  of  a  later  date — the  realism  of  Bacon.  The  study 
of  things  was  undertaken  not  for  its  own  sake,  but  simply  in 
order  to  understand  books.  Perhaps  some  of  us  are  con- 
scious that  this  kind  of  literary  realism  has  not  wholly  passed 
away.  We  may  have  observed  wild  flowers,  or  the  changes 
in  tree  or  cloud,  because  we  find  that  the  best  way  to  under- 
stand some  favourite  author,  as  Wordsworth  or  Tennyson. 
This  will  help  us  to  understand  the  realism  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  writings  of  great  authors  have  been  compared 
to  the  plaster  globes  ("  celestial  globes "  as  we  call  them), 
which  assist  us  in  understanding  the  configuration  of  the 
stars  {Guesses  at  Truths  j.  47).  Adopting  this  simile  we  may 
say  that  the  Scholars  loved  to  study  the  globe  for  its  own 
sake,  and  when  they  looked  at  stars  they  did  so  with  the 
object  of  understanding  the  globe.  Thus  we  read  of  doctors 
who  recommended  their  pupils  to  look  at  actual  cases  of 
disease  as  the  best  commentary  on  the  works  of  Hippocrates 
and  Galen.  This  kind  of  realism  was  good  as  far  as  it  went, 
but  it  did  not  go  far.  Of  course  the  end  in  view  limited 
the  study,  and  the  Scholars  took  no  interest  in  things  except 
those  which  were  mentioned  in  the  classics.  They  had  no 
desire  to  investigate  the  material  universe  and  make  dis- 
coveries for  themselves.  This  is  why  Galileo  could  not 
induce  them  to  look  through  his  telescope ;  for  the  ancients 
had  no  telescopes,  and  the  Scholars  wished  to  see  nothing 
that  had  not  been  seen  by  their  favourite  authors.  First 
then  we  have  the  Scholars,  headed  t)y  Erasmus. 


RENASCENCE   TENDENCIES,  2$ 

Verbal  Realists:  things  through  words. 

§  6.  Next  we  find  a  party  less  numerous  and  for  a  time 
less  influential,  who  did  care  about  things  for  the  sake  of  the 
things  themselves;  but  carried  away  by  the  literary  curient 
of  their  age,  they  sought  to  learn  about  them  not  directly, 
but  only  by  reading.  Here  again  we  have  a  kind  of  realism 
which  is  not  yet  extinct.  Some  years  ago  I  was  assured  by 
a  Graduate  of  the  University  of  London  who  had  passed  in 
chemistry,  that,  as  far  as  he  knew,  he  had  never  seen  a 
chemical  in  his  life :  he  had  got  all  his  knowledge  from 
books.  While  such  a  thing  is  possible  among  us,  we  need 
not  wonder  if  those  who  in  the  sixteenth  century  prized  the 
■knowledge  of  things,  allowed  books  to  come  between  the 
learner  and  the  object  of  his  study,  if  they  regarded  Nature 
as  a  far-off  country  of  which  we  could  know  nothing  but 
what  great  authors  reported  to  us. 

As  this  party,  unlike  the  Scholars,  did  not  delight  in  litera- 
ture as  such,  but  simply  as  a  means  of  acquiring  knowledge, 
literary  form  was  not  valued  by  them,  and  they  preferred 
Euclid  to  Sophocles,  Columella  to  Virgil.  Seeking  to  learn 
about  things,  not  immediately,  but  through  words,  they  have 
received  from  Raumer  a  name  they  are  likely  to  keep — 
Verbal  Realists.  In  the  sixteenth  century  the  greatest  of  the 
Verbal  Realists  also  gave  a  hint  of  Realism  proper ;  for  he 
was  no  less  a  man  than  Rabelais. 

§  7.  Lastly  we  come  to  those  who,  as  it  turned  out,  were 
to  have  more  influence  in  the  schoolroom  than  the  Scholars 
and  the  Verbal  Realists  combined.  I  do  not  know  that 
these  have  had  any  name  given  them,  but  for  distinction 
sake  we  may  call  them  Stylists.  In  studying  literature  the 
Scholars  cared  both  for  form  and  substance,  the  Verbal 
Realists  for  substance  only,  and  the  Stylists  for  form  only. 
The  Stylists  gave  up  their  lives,  not,  like  the  scholars,  to  gain 


26  RENASCENCE  TENDENCIES. 

Stylists:  words  for  themselves. 

a  thorough  understanding  of  the  ancient  writings  and  of  the 
old  world,  but  to  an  attempted  reproduction  of  the  ancient 
languages  and  of  the  classical  literary  form. 

§  8.  In  marking  these  tendencies  at  the  Renascence,  we 
must  remember  that  though  distinguished  by  their  tenden- 
cies, these  Scholars,  Verbal  Realists,  and  Stylists,  were  not 
divided  into  clearly  defined  parties.  Categories  like  these 
no  doubt  assist  us  in  gaining  precision  of  thought,  but  we 
must  not  gain  precision  at  the  expense  of  accuracy.  The 
tendencies  we  have  been  considering  did  not  act  in  precisely 
opposite  directions,  and  all  were  to  some  extent  aflected  by 
them.  But  one  tendency  was  predominant  in  one  man 
and  another  in  another;  and  this  justifies  us  in  calling 
Sturm  a  Stylist,  Erasmus  a  Scholar,  and  Rabelais  a  Verbal 
Realist. 

§  9.  In  one  respect  they  were  all  agreed.  The  world  was 
to  be  regenerated  by  means  of  books.  Nothing  pleased 
them  more  than  to  think  of  their  age  as  the  Revival  of 
Learning. 


27 


III. 

STURMIUS. 

1507 -1589. 


§  I.  The  curriculum  bequeathed  by  the  Renascence  and 
stereotyped  in  the  School  Codes  of  Germany,  in  the  Ratio 
of  the  Jesuits,  and  in  the  English  public  school  system,  was 
greatly  influenced  by  the  most  famous  schoolmaster  of  the 
fifteen  hundreds,  John  Sturm,  who  was  for  over  forty  years 
Rector  of  the  Strassburg  Gymnasium. 

§  2.  Sturm  was  a  fine  specimen  of  the  successful  man  : 
he  knew  what  his  contemporaries  wanted,  and  that  was  just 
what  he  wanted.  "  He  was  a  blessed  fellow,"  as  Prince  Hal 
says  of  Poins,  "to  think  as  every  man  thought,"  and  he  not 
only  "  kept  the  roadway  "  himself,  but  he  also  "  personally 
conducted"  great  bands  of  pupils  over  it,  at  one  time  "  200 
noblemen,  24  counts  and  barons,  and  3  princes."  What 
could  schoolmaster  desire  more? 

§  3.  But  I  frankly  own  that  Sturm  is  no  favourite  of  mine, 
and  that  I  think  that  he  did  much  harm  to  education. 
However,  his  influence  in  the  schoolroom  was  so  great  that 
I  must  not  leave  him  unnoticed ;  and  I  give  some  iniorma- 
tion,  taken  mainly  from  Raumer's  account  of  him,  which  is 
translated   in    Henry   Barnard's    "German   Teachers  and 


e8  STURMIUS. 


His  early  life.    Settles  in  Strassburg. 

Educators."  I  have  also  looked  at  the  exhaustive  article  bj 
Dr.  Bossier  in  K.  A.  Schmid's  Encyklopddie  {sub  v.) 

§  4.  John  Sturm,  born  at  Schleiden  in  the  Eifel,  not  far 
from  Cologne,  in  1507,  was  one  of  15  children,  and  would 
net  have  had  much  teaching  had  not  his  father  been  steward 
to  a  nobleman,  with  whose  sons  he  was  brought  up.  He 
always  spoke  with  reverence  and  affection  of  his  early  teachers, 
and  from  them  no  doubt  he  acquired  his  thirst  for  learning. 
With  the  nobleman's  sons  and  under  the  guidance  of  a  tutor 
he  was  sent  to  Liege,  and  there  he  attended  a  school  of  the 
"  Brethren  of  the  Life  in  Common,"  alias  Hieronymites. 
Many  of  the  arrangements  of  this  school  he  afterwards 
reproduced  in  the  Strassburg  Gymnasium,  and  in  this  way 
the  good  Brethren  gained  an  influence  over  classical  educa- 
tion throughout  the  world. 

§  5.  Between  the  age  of  15  and  20  Sturm  was  at  Lyons, 
and  before  the  end  of  this  period  he  was  forced  into  teaching 
for  a  maintenance.  He  then,  like  many  other  learned  men 
of  the  time,  turned  printer.  We  next  find  him  at  the 
University  of  Paris,  where  he  thought  of  becoming  a  doctor 
of  medicine,  but  was  finally  carried  away  from  natural  science 
by  the  Renascence  devotion  to  literature,  and  he  became  a 
popular  lecturer  on  the  classics.  From  Paris  he  was  called 
to  Strassburg  (then,  as  now,  in  Germany)  in  1537.  In  1538 
he  published  his  plan  of  a  Gymnasium  or  Grammar  School, 
with  the  title,  "  The  right  way  of  opening  schools  of  literature 
{De  Literamm  Ludis  recte  aj)cricndis)"  and  some  years 
afterwards  (1565)  he  published  his  Letters  {Classics  Epis- 
tolce)  to  the  different  form-masters  in  his  school. 

§  6.  The  object  of  teaching  is  three-fold,  says  Sturm, 
"  piety,  knowledge,  and  the  art  of  expression."  The  student 
should  be  distinguished   by  reasonable  and   neat   speech 


STURMIUS.  29 


His  course  of  Latin.     Dismissed. 

{ratione  et  oratione).  To  attain  this  the  boys  in  his  school 
had  to  give  seven  years  to  the  acquirement  of  a  pure  Latin 
sty'-e ;  then  two  years  more  were  devoted  to  elegance  ;  then 
five  years  of  collegiate  life  were  to  be  given  to  the  art  ol 
Latin  speech.  This  course  is  for  ten  years  carefully  mapped 
out  by  Sturm  in  his  Letters  to  the  masters.  The  foundation 
is  to  be  laid  in  the  tenth  class,  which  the  child  enters  at  seven 
years  old,  and  in  which  he  learns  to  read,  and  is  turned  on 
to  the  declensions  and  conjugations.  We  have  for  all  classes 
the  exact  "  pensum,"  and  also  specimens  of  the  questions  put 
in  examination  by  the  top  boy  of  the  next  class  above,  a  hint 
which  was  not  tlirown  away  upon  the  Jesuits. 

§  7.  Sturm  cries  over  the  superior  advantages  of  the 
Roman  children.  "  Cicero  was  but  twenty  when  he  delivered 
his  speeches  in  behalf  of  Quintius  and  Roscius ;  but  in  these 
days  where  is  there  the  man  even  of  eighty,  who  could  make 
such  speeches  f  Yet  there  are  books  enough  and  intellect 
enough.  What  need  we  further?  We  need  the  Latin 
language  and  a  correct  method  of  teaching.  Both  these  we 
must  have  before  we  can  arrive  at  the  summit  of  eloquence." 

§  8.  Sturm  did  not,  like  Rabelais,  put  Greek  on  a  level 
with  Latin  or  above  it.  The  reading  of  Greek  words  is  begun 
in  the  sixth  class.  Hebrew,  Sturm  did  not  himself  learn  till 
he  was  nearly  sixty. 

§  g.  With  a  thousand  boys  in  his  school,  and  carrying  on 
correspondence  with  the  leading  sovereigns  of  his  age,  Sturm 
was  a  model  of  the  successful  man.  But  in  the  end  "  the 
religious  difficulty"  was  too  much  even  for  him,  and  he  was 
dismissed  from  his  post  by  his  opponents  "for old  age  and 
other  causes."  Surely  the  "other  causes"  need  not  have 
been  mentioned.     Sturm  was  then  eighty  years  old. 

§  10.  The  successful  man  in  every  age  is  the  man  who 
5 


30  STURMIUS. 


The  Schoolmaster  taught  Latin  mainly. 


chooses  a  popular  and  attainable  object,  and  shows  tre- 
mendous  energy  in  pursuit  of  it.  Most  people  don't  know 
precisely  what  they  want;  and  among  the  few  who  do, 
nine-tenths  or  more  fail  through  lack  of  energy.  But  Sturm 
was  quite  clear  in  his  aim,  and  having  settled  the  means,  he 
showed  immense  energy  and  strength  of  will  in  going  through 
with  them.  He  wanted  to  restore  the  language  of  Cicero 
and  Ovid  and  to  give  his  pupils  great  power  of  elegant 
expression  in  that  language.  Like  all  schoolmasters  he 
professed  that  piety  and  knowledge  (which  in  more  modern 
phrase  would  be  wisdom  and  knowledge)  should  come  first, 
but  like  most  schoolmasters  he  troubled  himself  mainly,  if 
not  exclusively,  about  the  art  of  expression.  As  an  abstract 
proposition  the  schoolmaster  admits  that  to  have  in  your 
head  something  worth  saying  is  more  important  than  to  have 
(he  power  of  expression  ready  in  case  anything  worth  saying 
should  "come  along."  But  the  schoolmaster's  art  always 
has  taken,  and  I  suppose,  in  the  main,  always  will  take  for 
its  material  the  means  of  expression ;  and  by  preference  it 
chooses  a  tongue  not  vulgar  or  "  understanded  of  the  people." 
Thus  the  schoolmasters  with  Sturm  at  their  head  set  them- 
selves to  teach  words — foreign  words,  and  allowed  their 
pupils  to  study  nothing  else,  not  even  the  mother  tongue. 
The  satirist  who  wrote  Hudibras  has  stated  for  us  the  result — 
"  No  sooner  are  the  organs  of  the  brain 

Quick  to  receive  and  stedfast  to  retain 

Best  knowledges,  but  all's  laid  out  upon 

Retrieving  of  the  curse  of  Babylon. 

•  *  *  «  • 

And  he  that  is  but  able  to  express 

No  sense  in  several  languages 

Will  pass  for  leameder  than  he  that's  known 

To  speak  the  strongest  reason  in  his  own."* 

•  "On  Abuse  of  Human  Learning,"  by  Samuel  Butler. 


STURMIUS.  31 


Resulting  verbalism. 


§  1 1.  One  of  the  scholars  of  the  Renascence,  Hieronymus 
Wolf,  was  wise  enough  to  see  that  there  might  be  no  small 
merit  in  a  boy's  silence :  "  Nee  minima  pueri  virtus  esl 
tacere  cum  recte  loqui  nesciat"  (Quoted  by  Parker).  But 
this  virtue  of  silence  was  not  encouraged  by  Sturm,  and  he 
determined  that  by  the  age  of  sixteen  his  pupils  should 
have  a  fair  command  of  expression  in  Latin  and  some  know- 
ledge of  Greek.*  Latin  indeed  was  to  supplant  the  mother 
tongue,  and  boys  were  to  be  severely  punished  for  using 
their  own  language.  By  this  we  may  judge  of  the  pernicious 
effects  of  following  Sturm.  And  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose 
that  the  unwisdom  of  tilting  at  the  vernacular  was  not  so 
much  Sturm's,  as  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived.  The  typical 
English  schoolmaster  of  the  century,  Mulcaster,  was  in  this 
and  many  other  ways  greatly  in  advance  of  Sturm.  To  him 
it  was  plain  that  we  should  "  care  for  that  most  which  we 
ever  use  most,  because  we  need  it  most."f  The  only  need 
recognized  by  Sturm  was  need  of  the  classical  languages. 
Thus  he  and  his  admirers  led  the  unlucky  schoolboy 
straight  into  that  "  slough  of  Despond  " — verbahsm,  in  which 
he  has  struggled  ever  since ; 

"  Plunged  for  some  sense,  but  found  no  bottom  there, 
So  learned  and  floundered  on  in  mere  despair."! 

•  Multum  ilium  profecisse  arbitror,  qui  ante  sextum  decimum  setatii 
annum  facultatem  duarum  linguarum  niediocrem  assecutus  est.  (Quoted 
by  Parker.) 

t  R.  Mulcaster's  Positions,  1 58 1,  p.  30.  I  have  reprinted  this  book 
(l-xmgmansj  1888,  price  \os.). 

%  Sturm's  school  *'  had  an  European  reputation  :  there  were  Poles 
and  Portuguese,  Spaniards,  Danes,  Italians,  French  and  English.  But 
besides  this,  it  was  the  model  and  mother  school  of  a  numerous  progeny. 
Slurm  himself  organized  schools  for  several  towns  which  applied  to  him. 


32  STURMIUS. 


Some  books  about  Sturm. 


His  disciples  became  organizers,  rectors,  and  professors.  In  shoit,  if 
Melanchthon  was  the  instructor,  Sturm  was  the  schoolmaste;:  jf 
Germany.  Together  with  his  method,  his  school-books  were  spread 
broadcast  over  the  land.  Both  were  adopted  by  Ascham  in  England, 
and  by  Buchanan  in  Scotland.  Sturm  himself  was  a  great  man  at  the 
imperial  court.  No  diplomatist  passed  through  Strasburg  without 
stopping  to  converse  with  him.  He  drew  a  pension  from  the  King  of 
Denmark,  another  from  the  King  of  France,  a  third  from  the  Queen 
of  England,  collected  political  information  for  Cardinal  Granvella,  and 
was  ennobled  by  Charles  V.  He  helped  to  negotiate  peace  between 
France  and  England,  and  was  appointed  to  confer  with  a  commission  of 
Cardinals  on  reunion  of  the  Church.  In  short,  Sturm  knew  what  he 
was  about  as  well  as  most  men  of  his  time.  Yet  few  will  be  disposed 
to  accept  his  theory  of  education,  even  for  the  sixteenth  centuiy,  as  the 
best.  Wherein  then  lay  the  mistake  ?  .  .  .  Sturm  asserted  that  the 
proper  end  of  school  education  is  eloquence,  or  in  modern  phrase,  a 
masterly  command  of  language,  and  that  the  knowledge  of  things 
mainly  belongs  to  a  later  stage  .  .  .  Sturm  assumed  that  Latin  is 
the  language  in  which  eloquence  is  to  be  acquired." 

This  is  from  Mr.  Charles  Stuart  Parker's  excellent  account  of  Sturm  in 
Essays  on  a  Liberal  Edticaticn,  edited  by  Farrar,  Essay  I.,  On  History 
of  Classical  Education,  p.  39. 

I  find  from  Herbart  (Pad.  Schriften,  O.  Wilmann's  edition,  vol.  ij, 
229  ff;  Beyer's  edition,  ij,  321)  that  the  historian,  F.  H.  Ch.  Schwarz, 
took  a  very  favourable  view  of  Sturm's  work ;  and  both  he  and  Karl 
Schmidt  give  Sturm  credit  for  introducing  the  two  ways  of  studying  an 
author  that  maybe  carried  on  at  the  same  time — 1st,  statarisck,  i.e,, 
reading  a  small  quantity  accurately,  and  2nd,  cursorisch,  i.e.,  getting 
over  the  ground.  These  two  kinds,  of  reading  were  made  much  of  by 
J.  M.  Gesner  (1691-1761).  Ernst  Laas  has  written  Die  Pddagogik  J. 
Sturms  which  no  doubt  does  him  justice,  but  I  have  not  seen  the  IxKik. 


IV. 

SCHOOLS   OF   THE   JESUITS. 


§  I.  Since  the  Revival  of  Learning,  no  body  of  men  has 
played  so  prominent  a  part  in  education  as  the  Jesuits. 
With  characteristic  sagacity  and  energy  they  soon  seized  on 
education  as  a  stepping-stone  to  power  and  influence;  and 
with  their  talent  for  organization,  they  framed  a  system  of 
schools  which  drove  all  important  competitors  from  the  field, 
and  made  Jesuits  the  instructors  of  Catholic,  and  even,  to 
some  extent,  of  Protestant  Europe.  Their  skill  in  this 
capacity  is  attested  by  the  highest  authorities,  by  Bacon* 
and  by  Descartes,  the  latter  of  whom  had  himself  been  their 
pupil ;  and  it  naturally  met  with  its  reward :  for  more  than 


*  Why  did  Bacon,  who  spoke  slightingly  of  Sturm  (see  Parker,  io 
Essays  on  Lib.  Ed.),  rate  the  Jesuits  so  highly?  "  Consule  scholas 
Jesuitarum  :  nihil  enim  quod  in  usum  venit  his  melius,"  De  Aug.,  lib. 
iv,  cap.  iv.  See,  too,  a  longer  passage  in  first  book  of  De  Aug.  (about 
end  of  first  \),  "  Quse  nobilissima  pars  priscae  disciplince  revocata  est 
aliquatenus,  quasi  postliminio,  in  Jesuitarum  collegiis  ;  quorum  cum 
Intueor  industriam  solertiamque  tam  in  doctrina  excolenda  quam  in 
moribus  informandis,  illud  occurrit  Agesilai  de  rharnabazo,  'Talis 
com  sis,  utinara  noster  esses. 


34  THE  JESUITS. 

Importance  of  the  Jesuit  Schools. 

one  hundred  years  nearly  all  the  foremost  men  throughout 
Christendom,  both  among  the  clergy  and  laity,  had  received 
the  Jesuit  training,  and  in  most  cases  retained  for  life  an 
attachment  to  their  did  masters. 

§  2.  About  these  Jesuit  schools — once  so  celebrated  and 
so  powerful,  and  still  existing  in  great  numbers,  though 
little  remains  of  their  original  importance — there  does  not 
seem  to  be  much  information  accessible  to  the  English 
reader.  I  have,  therefore,  collected  the  following  particulars 
about  them ;  and  refer  any  one  who  is  dissatisfied  with  so 
meagre  an  account,  to  the  works  which  I  have  consulted.* 
The  Jesuit  scho61s,  as  I  said,  still  exist,  but  they  did  their 


*  (l)  Joseph  Anton Schmid's  "Niedere  Schulen  der Jesuiten : "  Regens- 
burg,  1852.  (2)  Article  by  Wagenmann  in  K.  A.  Schmid's  "  Encyclo- 
p'adie  des  Erziehungs-  und  Unterrichtswesens."  (3)  "  Ratio  atque 
Institutio  Studiorum  Soc.  Jesu."  The  first  edition  of  this  work, 
published  at  Rome  in  1585,  was  suppressed  as  heretical,  because  it 
contemplated  the  possibility  of  differing  from  St.  Thomas  Aquinas.  The 
book  is  now  very  scarce.  There  is  a  copy  in  the  British  Museum. 
On  comparing  it  with  the  folio  edition  ("Constitutiones,"  &c.,  pub- 
lished at  Prag  in  1632),  Tfind  many  omissions  in  the  latter,  some  of 
which  are  curious,  e.g.,  under  "  De  Matrimonio  :" — "  Matremne  an 
uxorem  occidere  sit  gravius,  non  est  hujus  loci."  (4)  "  Parser. esis  ad 
Magistros  Scholarum  Inferiorum  Soc.  Jesu,  scripta  a  P.  Francisco 
Sacchino,  ex  eadem  Societate."  (5)  "  Juvencius  de  Ratione  Discendi 
et  Docendi."  Cretineau-Joly's  "Histoire  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus" 
(Paris,  1844),  I  have  not  made  much  use  of.  Sacchini  and  Jouvency 
were  both  historians  of  the  Order.  The  former  died  in  1625,  the  latter 
in  1 7 19.  There  is  a  good  sketch  of  the  Jesuit  schools,  by  Andrewes,  in 
Barnard's  American  Journal  of  Education,  vol.  xiv,  1864,  reprinted 
in  the  best  book  I  know  of  in  English  on  the  History  of  Education, 
Barnard's  German  Teachers. 


THE  JESUITS.  35 


Society  in  part  educational. 


great  work  in  other  centuries;  and  I  therefore  prefer  to 
speak  of  them  as  things  of  the  past.* 

§  3.  When  the  Jesuits  were  first  formally  recognized  by 
a  Bull  of  Paul  III  in  1540,  the  Bull  stated  that  the  Order 
was  formed,  among  other  things,  "  especially  for  the  purpose 
of  instructing  boys  and  ignorant  persons  in  the  Christian 
religion."  But  the  Society  well  understood  that  secular  was 
more  in  demand  than  religious  learning ;  and  they  offered 
the  more  valued  instruction,  that  they  might  have  the 
opDortunity  of  inculcating  lessons  which,  to  the  Society  at 
lep.st,  were  the  more  valuable.  From  various  Popes  they 
obtained  powers  for  founding  schools  and  colleges,  for  giving 
degrees,  and  for  lecturing  publicly  at  universities.  Their 
foundations  rapidly  extended  in  the  Romance  countries, 
except  in  France,  where  they  were  long  in  overcoming  the 
opposition  of  the  Regular  clergy  and  of  the  University  of 
Paris.  Over  the  Teutonic  and  Slavonic  countries  they 
spread  their  influence  first  by  means  of  national  colleges  at 
Rome,  where  boys  of  the  different  nations  were  trained  as 
missionaries.  But,  in  time,  the  Jesuits  pushed  their  camps 
forward,  even  into  the  heart  of  the  enemy's  country. 

§  4.  The  system  of  education  to  be  adopted  in  all  the 
Jesait  institutions  was  settled  during  the  Generalship  of 
Aquaviva.  In  1584  that  General  appointed  a  School 
Commission,  consisting  of  six  distinguished  Jesuits  from  the 
vaiious  countries  of  Europe.  These  spent  nearly  a  year  in 
Rome,  in  study  and  consultation;   and  the  fruit  of  their 


*  "L'execution  des  decretsde  1880  a  eu  pour  resultat  la  fermeturede 
leurs  colleges.  Mais  malgre  leur  dispersion  apparente  ils  sent  encore 
plus  puissants  qu'on  ne  le  croit,  et  ce  serait  une  erreur  de  penser  que  le 
dernier  mot  est  dit  avec  eux." — Compayre,  in  Buisson,  ij,  p.  1420. 


36  THE  JESUITS. 


"Ratio  atque  Institutio."    Societas  Professa. 

labours  was  tlie  ground-work  of  the  Ratio  atque  Jjistituiio 
Studiorum  Societatis  Jesu.  This,  however,  did  not  take  its 
final  form  till  twelve  other  commissioners  had  been  at 
work  upon  it.  It  was  then  (1599)  revised  and  approved 
by  Aquaviva  and  the  Fifth  and  Sixth  General  Assemblies. 
By  this  code  the  Jesuit  schools  were  governed  till  1832, 
when  the  curriculum  was  enlarged  so  as  to  include  physical 
science  and  modern  languages. 

§  5,  The  Jesuits  who  formed  the  Societas  Professa,  i.e., 
those  who  had  taken  all  the  vows,  had  spent  from  fifteen 
to  eighteen  years  in  preparation,  viz.,  two  years  as  novices 
and  one  as  approved  scholars,  during  which  they  were 
engaged  chiefly  in  religious  exercises,  three  years  in  the 
study  of  philosophy  and  mathematics,  four  years  of  theology, 
^nd,  in  the  case  of  the  more  distinguished  students,  two 
years  more  in  repetition  and  private  theological  study.  At 
some  point  in  this  course,  mostly  after  the  philosophy,  the 
students  were  sent,  for  a  while,  to  teach  the  "  lower  studies  " 
to  boys.*     The  method  of  teaching  was  to  be  learnt  in  the 


•  According  to  the  article  in  K.  A.  Schniid's  "  Encyclopadie,"  the 
usual  course  was  this — the  two  years'  novitiate  was  over  by  the  time  the 
youth  was  between  fifteen  and  seventeen.  He  then  entered  a  Jesuit 
college  as  Scholasticus.  Here  he  learnt  literature  and  rhetoric  for  two 
years,  and  then  philosophy  (with  mathemaiics)  for  three  more.  He  then 
entered  on  his  Regency,  i.e.,  he  went  over  the  same  ground  as  a  teacher, 
for  from  four  to  six  years.  Then  followed  a  period  of  theological  study, 
ending  with  a  year  of  trial,  called  the  Tertiorat.  The  candidr.ts  A-as 
now  admitted  to  Priest's  Orders,  and  took  the  vows  either  as  projtsstu 
quatuor  votorwn,  professed  father  of  four  vows,  or  as  a  coadjutor.  If  he 
was  then  sent  back  to  teach,  he  gave  only  the  higher  instruction.  Thfl 
fouiih  vow  placed  him  at  the  disposal  of  the  Pope. 


THE  JESUITS.  37 

The  Jesuit  teacher:  his  preparation,  &c. 

training  schools,  called  Juvenats,*  one  of  which  was  founded 
in  each  province. 

Few,  even  of  the  most  distinguished  students,  received 
dispensation  from  giving  elementary  instruction.  Salmeron 
and  Bobadilla  performed  this  duty  in  Naples,  Lainez  in 
Florence,  Borgia  (who  had  been  Viceroy  of  Catalonia)  in 
Cordova,  Canisius  in  Cologne. 

§  6.  During  the  time  the  Jesuit  held  his  post  as  teacher 
he  was  to  give  himself  up  entirely  to  the  work.  His 
private  studies  were  abandoned ;  his  religious  exercises 
shortened.  He  began  generally  with  the  boys  in  the  lowest 
form,  and  that  he  might  be  able  to  study  the  character  of 
his  pupils  he  went  up  the  school  with  them,  advancing  a 
step  every  year,  as  in  the  system  now  common  in  Scotland. 
But  some  forms  were  always  taught,  as  the  highest  is  in 
Scotland,  by  the  same  master,  who  remained  a  teacher  for 
life. 

§  7.  Great  care  was  to  be  taken  that  the  frequent  changes 
in  the  staff  of  masters  did  not  lead  to  alteration  in  the 
conduct  of  the  school.  Each  teacher  was  bound  to  carry 
on  the  established  instruction  by  the  established  methods. 
All  his  personal  peculiarities  and  opinions  were  to  be  4S 


•  Karl  Schmidt  (Gesch.  d.  Pad.,  iij.  199,  200),  says  that  however  much 
teachers  were  wanted,  a  two  years'  course  of  preparation  was  considered 
indispensable.  WTien  the  Novitiate  was  over  the  candidate  became  a 
"Junior  "  {(?a//iV^  "  Juveniste").  He  then  continued  his  studies  m 
Uteris  humanioribus,  preparatory  to  teaching.  When  in  the  "Juvenat" 
or  "Juniorate"  he  had  rubbed  up  his  classics  and  mathematics,  he 
entered  the  "  Seminary,"  and  two  or  three  times  a  week  he  expounded 
to  a  class  the  matrerofthe  previous  lecture,  and  answered  questions, 
&c.  For  this  information  I  am  indebted  to  the  courtesy  of  Father  Eyre 
(S.  J.),  of  Stonyhurst. 


38  THE  JESUITS. 

Supervision.    Maintenance.    Lower  Schools. 

much  as  possible  suppressed.  To  secure  this  a  rigid  system 
of  supervision  was  adopted,  and  reports  were  furnished  by 
each  officer  to  his  immediate  superior.  Over  all  stood  the 
General  of  the  Order.  Next  came  the  Provincial,  appointed 
by  the  General.  Over  each  college  was  the  Rector,  who 
was  appointed  (for  three  years)  by  the  General,  though  he 
was  responsible  to  the  Provincial,  and  made  his  reports  to 
him.  Next  came  the  Prefect  of  Studies,  appointed,  not  by 
the  Rector,  but  by  the  Provincial.  The  teachers  were 
carefully  watched  both  by  the  Rector  and  the  Prefect  of 
Studies,  and  it  was  the  duty  of  the  latter  to  visit  each 
teacher  in  his  class  at  least  once  a  fortnight,  to  hear  him 
teach.  The  other  authoritie?,  besides  the  masters  of  classes, 
were  usually  a  House  Prefect,  and  Monitors  selected  from 
the  boys,  one  in  each  form. 

§  8.  The  school  or  college  was  to  be  built  and  maintained 
by  gifts  and  bequests  which  the  Society  might  receive  for 
this  purpose  only.  Their  instruction  was  always  given 
gratuitously.  When  sufficient  funds  were  raised  to  support 
the  officers,  teachers,  and  at  least  twelve  scholars,  no  effort 
was  to  be  made  to  increase  them  ;  but  if  they  fell  short  of 
this,  donations  were  to  be  sought  by  begging  from  house  to 
house.  Want  of  money,  however,  was  not  a  difficulty  which 
the  Jesuits  often  experienced. 

§  9.  The  Jesuit  education  included  two  courses  of  study, 
studia  superiora  et  inferiora.  In  the  smaller  colleges  only  the 
studiainferioravitxe  carried  on ;  and  it  is  to  these  lower  schools 
that  the  following  account  mainly  refers.  The  boys  usually 
began  this  course  at  ten  years  old  and  ended  it  at  sixteen.* 

*  So  says  Andrewes  {American  journal  of  Education),  but  other 
Authorities  put  the  age  of  entrance  as  high  as  fourteen.  The  stuo'ia 
tuperiora  were  begun  before  twenly-foui. 


THE  JESUITS.  39 


Free  instruction.    Equality.     Boarders. 

§  lo.  The  pupils  in  the  Jesuit  colleges  were  of  two  kinds : 
I  St,  those  who  were  training  for  the  Order,  and  had  passed 
t!.e  Novitiate ;  2nd,  the  externs,  who  were  pupils  merely. 
When  the  building  was  not  filled  by  the  first  of  these  (the 
Scholastici,  or  Nostri,  as  they  are  called  in  the  Jesuit 
writings),  other  pupils  were  taken  in  to  board,  who  had  to 
pay  simply  the  cost  of  their  living,  and  not  even  this  unless 
they  could  well  afford  it.  Instruction,  as  I  said,  was 
gratuitous  to  all.  "Gratis  receive,  gratis  give,"  was  the 
Society's  rule ;  so  they  would  neither  make  any  charge  for 
instruction,  nor  accept  any  gift  that  was  burdened  with 
conditions. 

§  II-  Faithful  to  the  tradition  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
the  Society  did  not  estimate  a  man's  worth  simply  according 
to  his  birth  and  outward  circumstances.  The  Constitutions 
expressly  laid  down  that  poverty  and  mean  extraction  were  • 
never  to  be  any  hindrance  to  a  pupil's  admission ;  and 
Sacchini  says :  "Do  not  let  any  favouring  of  the  higher 
classes  interfere  with  the  care  of  meaner  pupils,  since  the 
birth  of  all  is  equal  in  Adam,  and  the  inheritance  in 
Christ."* 

§  12.  The  externs  who  could  not  be  received  into  the 
building  were  boarded  in  licensed  houses,  which  were  always 
liable  to  an  unexpected  visit  from  the  Prefect  of  Studies. 

§  13.  The  "lower  school"  was  arranged  in  five  classes 
(since  increased  to  eight),  of  which  the  lowest  usually  had 
twD  divisions.  Parallel  classes  were  formed  wherever  the 
number  of  pupils  was  too  great  for  five  masters.  The 
names  given  to  the  several  divisions  were  as  follows  : 


*  "  Non  gratia  nobilium  officiat  culturse  vulgarium  :  cum  sint  natales 
omnium  pares  in  Adam  et  h^ereditates  quoque  pares  in  Christo." 


40  THE  JESUITS. 

Classes.    Curriculum.    Latin  only  used. 

1.  Infima      -n 

2.  Media       >  Classis  Gramniaticee. 

3.  Suprema  ) 

4.  Humanitas. 

5.  Rhetorica, 

Each  was  "absolved  "  in  a  year,  except  Rhetoiica,  which 
required  two  years  (Stockl,  p.  237). 

Jesuits  and  Protestants  alike  in  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries  thought  of  little  but  literary  instruction,  and 
that  too  connected  only  with  Latin  and  Greek.  The 
subject-matter  of  the  teaching  in  the  Jesuit  schools  was  to 
be  "  praeter  Grammaticam,  quod  ad  Rhetoricam,  Poesim  et 
Historiam  pertinet,"  in  addition  to  Grammar,  whatever 
related  to  Rhetoric,  Poetry,  and  History.  Reading  and 
writing  the  mother-tongue  might  not  be  taught  without 
special  leave  from  the  Provincial.  Latin  was  as  much 
as  possible  to  supersede  all  other  languages,  even  in 
speaking ;  and  nothing  else  might  be  used  by  the  pupils 
in  the  higher  forms  on  any  day  but  a  holiday.*  To  gain 
a  supply  of  Latin  words  for  ordinary  use,  the  pupils  com- 
mitted to  memory  Latin  conversations  on  general  topics, 
such  as  Francis  Pomey's  "  Indiculus  Universalis  "  and  "  Col- 
loquia  Scholastica." 

§  14.  Although  many  good  school-books  were  written  by 
the  Jesuits,  a  great  part  of  their  teaching  was  given  orally. 
The  master  was,  in  fact,  a  lecturer,  who  expounded  some- 
times a  piece  of  a  Latin  or  Greek  author,  sometimes  the 


•  Even  junior  masters  were  not  to  be  much  addicted  to  their  own 
language.  "  Illud  cavendum  imprimis  junior!  magistro  ne  vernaculis 
nimium  libris  indulgeat,  pmesertim  poetis,  in  quibus  maximam  temporis 
AC  fortasse  morum  jacturam  iiiC^xtV—Jouveiicy. 


THE  JESUITS.  41 


Teacher  Lectured.    Exercises.    Saying  by  heart. 

rules  of  grammar.  The  pupils  were  required  to  get  up  the 
substance  of  these  lectures,  and  to  learn  the  grammar-rules 
and  parts  of  the  classical  authors  by  heart.  The  master 
for  his  part  had  to  bestow  great  pains  on  the  preparation  of 
his  lectures.* 

§  15.  Written  exercises,  translations,  &c.,  were  given  in 
on  every  day,  except  Saturday;  and  the  master  had,  if 
possible,  to  go  over  each  one  with  its  writer  and  his 
appointed  rival  or  ceniulus. 

§  16.  The  method  of  hearing  the  rules,  &c.,  committed 
to  memory  was  this  : — Certain  boys  in  each  class,  who  were 
called  Decurions,  repeated  their  tasks  to  the  master,  and 
then  in  his  presence  heard  the  other  boys  repeat  theirs. 
The  master  meanwhile  corrected  the  written  exercises. t 

*  "  Multum  proderit  si  magister  non  tumultuario  ac  siibito  dicat,  sed 
quae  domi  cogitate  scripserit. — It  will  be  a  great  gain  if  the  master  does 
not  speak  in  a  hurry  and  without  forethought,  but  is  ready  with  what 
he  has  thought  out  and  written  out  in  his  own  room." — Ratio  Studd.^ 
quoted  by  Schmid.  And  Sacchini  says  :  "  Ante  omnia,  quae  quisque 
docturus  est,  egregie  calleat.  Turn  enim  bene  docet,  et  facile  docet,  et 
libenter  docet ;  bene,  quia  sine  errore ;  facile,  quia  sine  labore ; 
libenter,  quia  ex  pleno  .  .  .  Memoriae  minimum  fidat :  instauret 
eam  refricetque  iterata  lectione  antequam  quicquam  doceat,  etiamsi  idem 
saepe  docuerit.  Occurret  non  raro  quod  addat  vel  commodius  proponat. 
— Before  all  things  let  everyone  be  thoroughly  skilled  in  what  he  is 
going  to  teach  ;  for  then  he  teaches  well,  he  teaches  easily,  he  teaches 
readily  :  well,  because  he  makes  no  mistakes ;  easily,  because  he  has 
no  need  to  exert  himself;  readily,  because,  like  wealthy  men  he 
cares  not  how  he  gives.  .  .  •  Let  him  be  very  distrustful  of  his 
memory ;  let  him  renew  his  remembrance  and  rub  it  up  by  repeated 
reading  before  he  teaches  anything,  though  he  may  have  often  taught  it 
before.  Something  will  now  and  then  occur  to  him  which  he  may  add, 
or  put  more  neatly." 

t  In  a  school  (not  belonging  to  the  Jesuits)  where  this  plan  was 
Adopted,  the  boys,  by  an  ingenious  contrivance,  managed  to  make  it 


42  THE  JESUITS. 


Emulation.    "JEmulV    Concertations. 

§  17.  One  of  the  leading  peculiarities  in  the  Jesuits' 
system  was  the  pains  they  took  to  foster  emulation — "  cotem 
ingenii  puerilis,  calcar  industriae — the  whetstone  of  talent, 
the  spur  of  industry."  For  this  purpose  all  the  boys  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  school  were  arranged  in  pairs,  each  pair 
being  rivals  (cemu/i)  to  one  another.  Every  boy  was  to  be 
constantly  on  the  watch  to  catch  his  rival  tripping,  and  was 
immediately  to  correct  him.  Besides  this  individual  rivalry, 
every  class  was  divided  into  two  hostile  camps,  called 
Rome  and  Carthage,  which  had  frequent  pitched  battles  of 
questions  on  set  subjects.  These  were  the  "  Concertations," 
in  which  the  boys  sometimes  had  to  put  questions  to  the 
opposite  camp,  sometimes  to  expose  erroneous  answers  when 
the  questions  were  asked  by  the  master*  (see  Appendix : 
Class  Matches,  p.  529).  Emulation,  indeed,  was  en- 
couraged to  a  point  where,  as  it  seems  to  me,  it  must  have 
endangered  the  good  feeling  of  the  boys  among  themselves. 
Jouvency  mentions  a  practice  of  appointing  mock  defenders 
of  any  particularly  bad  exercise,  who  should  make  the 
author  of  it  ridiculous  by  their  excuses ;  and  any  boy  whose 
work  was  very  discreditable,  was  placed  on  a  form  by  him- 
self, with  a  daily  punishment,  until  he  could  show  that  some 
one  deserved  to  change  places  with  him. 

§  18.  In  the  higher  classes  a  better  kind  of  rivalry  was 

work  very  smoothly.  The  boy  who  was  "  hearing  "  the  lessons  held 
the  book  upside  down  in  such  a  way  that  the  others  read  instead  of 
repeating  by  heart.  The  masters  finally  interfered  with  this  arrange- 
ment. 

•  Since  the  above  was  written,  an  account  of  these  concertations  has 
appeared  in  the  Rev.  G.  R.  Kingdon's  evidence  before  the  Schools 
Commission,  1867  (vol.  v,  Answers  12,228  fF.)-  Mr.  Kingdon,  the 
Prefect  of  Studies  at  Stonyhurst,  mentions  that  the  side  which  wins 
m  most  concertations  gets  an  extra  half-holiday. 


/_ 


THE  JESUITS.  43 


"Academies."    Expedients.    School-hours. 

cultivated  by  means  of  "  Academies,"  i.e.,  voluntary  associa- 
tions for  study,  which  met  together,  under  the  superintendence 
of  a  master,  to  read  themes,  translations,  &c.,  and  to  discuss 
pasf:ages  from  the  classics.  The  new  members  were  sleeted 
by  the  old,  and  to  be  thus  elected  was  a  much-coveted 
distinction.  In  these  Academies  the  cleverer  students  got 
practice  for  the  disputations,  which  formed  an  important 
part  of  the  school  work  of  the  higher  classes. 

§  19.  There  was  a  vast  number  of  other  expedients  by 
which  the  Jesuits  sought  to  work  on  their  pupils'  amour 
propre,  such  as,  on  the  one  hand,  the  weekly  publication  of 
offences  per  prcEconem,  and,  on  the  other,  besides  prizes 
(which  could  be  won  only  by  the  extern  s),  titles  and  badges 
of  honour,  and  the  like.  "There  are,"  says  Jouvency, 
"  hundreds  of  expedients  of  this  sort,  all  tending  to  sharpen 
the  boys'  wits,  to  lighten  the  labour  of  the  master,  and  to 
free  him  from  the  invidious  and  troublesome  necessity  of 
punishing." 

§  20.  The  school-hours  were  remarkably  short :  two 
hours  and  a  half  in  the  morning,  and  the  same  in  the  after- 
noon ;  with  a  whole  holiday  a  week  in  summer,  and  a  half 
holiday  in  winter.  The  time  was  spent  in  the  first  form 
after  the  following  manner  : — During  the  first  half-hour  the 
master  corrected  the  exercises  of  the  previous  day,  while  the 
Decurions  heard  the  lesson  which  had  been  learnt  by  heart. 
Then  the  master  heard  the  piece  of  Latin  which  he  had 
explained  on  the  previous  day.  With  this  construing,  was 
connected  a  great  deal  of  parsing,  conjugating,  declining,  &c 
The  teacher  then  explained  thepiece  for  the  following  day, 
which,  in  this  form,  was  never  to  exceed  four  lines.  The 
last  half-hour  of  the  morning  was  spent  in  explaining 
grammar.     This  was  done  very  slowly  and  carefully :  in  thy 


44  THE  JESUITS. 


Method  of  teaching.    An  example. 


words  of  the  Ratio  Sticdd. :  "  Pluribus  die  bus  fere  singula 
prsecepta  inculcanda  sunt" — "Generally  take  a  single  rule  and 
drive  it  in,  several  days."  For  the  first  hour  of  the  after- 
noon the  master  corrected  exercises,  and  the  boys  learnt 
grammar.  If  there  was  time,  the  master  put  questions 
about  the  grammar  he  had  explained  in  the  morning.  The 
second  hour  was  taken  up  with  more  explanations  of 
grammar,  and  the  school  closed  with  half  an  hour's  concer- 
tation,  or  the  master  corrected  the  notes  which  the  pupils 
had  taken  during  the  day.  In  the  other  forms,  the  work 
was  very  similar  to  this,  except  that  Greek  was  added,  and 
also  in  the  higher  classes  a  little  mathematics. 

§  21.  It  will  be  observed  from  the  above  account,  that 
almost  all  the  strength  of  the  Jesuit  teaching  was  thrown 
into  the  study  of  the  Latin  language,  which  was  to  be  used, 
not  only  for  reading,  but  also  in  writing  and  speaking.  But 
under  the  name  of  "  erudition  "  some  amount  of  instruction 
in  other  subjects,  especially  in  history  and  geography,  was 
given  in  explaining,  or  rather  lecturing  on,  the  classical 
authors,  Jouvency  says  that  this  lecture  must  consist  of  the 
following  parts  : — ist,  the  general  meaning  of  the  whole 
passage ;  2nd,  the  explanation  of  each  clause,  both  as  to  the 
meaning  and  construction;  3rd,  any  information,  such  as 
accounts  of  historical  events,  or  of  ancient  manners  and 
customs,  which  could  be  connected  with  the  text;  4th,  in 
the  higher  forms,  applications  of  the  rules  of  rhetoric  and 
poetry;  5th,  an  examination  of  the  Latinity  ;  6th,  the  incul- 
cation of  some  moral  lesson.  This  treatment  of  a  subject 
he  illustrates  by  examples.  Among  these  is  an  account  of 
a  lesson  for  the  first  {i.e.,  lowest)  class  in  th*^  Fable  of  the 
Fox  and  the  Mask: — ist,  comes  the  argument  and  the 
explanation  of  words ;    2nd,  the  grammar  and  parsing,  as 


TITE  JESUITS.  45 


Attention.     Extra  work.     "Repetitio." 

vulpes,  a  substantive  of  the  third  declension,  &c.,  like 
proles,  eludes,  &c.  (here  the  master  is  always  to  give  among 
ais  examples  some  which  the  boys  already  know) ;  3rd, 
comes  the  eruditio — something  about  foxes,  about  tragedy, 
about  the  brain,  and  hence  about  other  parts  of  the 
head ;  4th,  Latinity,  the  order  of  the  words,  choice  of  the 
words,  synonyms,  &c.  Then  the  sentences  may  be  parodied  j 
other  suitable  substantives  may  be  found  for  the  adjectives 
and  vice  versd;  and  every  method  is  to  be  adopted  of 
showing  the  boys  how  to  use  the  words  they  have  learnt. 
Lastly,  comes  the  moral. 

§  22.  The  practical  teacher  will  be  tempted  to  ask,  How 
is  the  attention  of  the  class  to  be  kept  up  whilst  all  this 
information  is  given  ?  This  the  Jesuits  did  partly  by  punish- 
ing the  inattentive.  Every  boy  was  subsequently  required 
to  reproduce  what  the  teacher  had  said,  and  to  show  his 
written  notes  of  it.  But  no  doubt  this  matter  of  attention 
was  found  a  difficulty.  Jouvency  tells  the  teachers  to 
break  off  from  time  to  time  in  their  lectures,  and  to  ask 
questions ;  and  he  adds  :  "  Variae  sunt  artes  excitandae 
attentionis  quas  docebit  usus  et  sua  cuique  industria  sug- 
geret. — Very  various  are  the  devices  for  arousing  attention. 
These  will  occur  with  practice  and  pains." 

For  private  study,  besides  written  exercises  and  learning 
by  heart,  the  pupils  were  recommended  subjects  to  get  up 
in  their  own  time ;  and  in  this,  and  also  as  to  the  length  of 
some  of  the  regular  lessons,  they  were  permitted  to  decide 
for  themselves.  Here,  as  everywhere,  the  Jesuits  trusted  to 
the  sense  of  honour  and  emulation — those  who  did  extra 
work  w^ere  praised  and  rewarded. 

§  23.  One  of  the  maxims  of  this  system  was :  "  Repetitio 
tvater  studiorum."  Every  lesson  was  connected  with  two 
6 


46  THE  JESUITS. 

Repetition.    Thoroughness. 


repetitions— one  before  it  began,  of  preceding  work,  and  the 
other  at  the  close,  of  the  work  just  done.  Besides  this,  one 
day  a  week  was  devoted  entirely  to  repetition.  In  the  three 
lowest  classes  the  desire  of  laying  a  solid  foundation  even 
led  to  the  second  six  months  in  the  year  being  given  to 
again  going  over  the  work  of  the  first  six  months.*  By  this 
means  boys  of  extraordinary  ability  could  pass  through  these 
forms  in  eighteen  months,  instead  of  three  years. 

§  23.  Thoroughness  in  work  was  the  one  thing  insisted 
on.  Sacchini  says  that  much  time  should  be  spent  in  going 
over  the  more  important  things,  which  are  "  veluti  multorum 
fontes  et  capita  (as  it  were  the  sources  and  starting  points  of 
many  others) " ;  and  that  the  master  should  prefer  to  teach  a 
few  things  perfectly,  to  giving  indistinct  impressions  of  many 
things. t  We  should  remember,  however,  that  the  pupils  of 
the  Jesuits  were  not  children.  Subjects  such  as  grammar 
cannot,  by  any  expenditure  of  time  and  trouble,  be  perfectly 
taught  to  children,  because  children  cannot  perfectly  under- 
stand them  3  so  that  the  Jesuit  thoroughness  is  not  always 
attainable. 

§  24.  The  usual  duration  of  the  course  in  the  lower 
schools  was  six  years — i.e.,  one  year  in  each  of  the  four 


*  "The  grinding  over  and  over  of  a  subject  after  pupils  have  attained  a 
fair  knowledge  of  it,  is  nothing  less  than  stultifying — killing  out 
curiosity  and  the  desire  of  knowledge,  and  begetting  mechanical  habits." 
— Supt.  J.  Hancock,  Dayton,  Ohio.  Every  teacher  of  experience  knowi 
how  true  this  is. 

t  '*  Stude  potius  ut  pauciora  clare  distincteque  percipiant,  quam 
obscure  at  que  confuse  pluribus  imbuantur. — Care  rather  for  their  see- 
ing a  few  things  vividly  and  definitely,  than  that  they  should  get  filled 
with  hazy  and  confusing  notions  of  many  things."  (There  are  few 
m(ue  valuable  precepts  for  the  teacher  than  this.) 


THE  JESUITS.  47 

Yearly  examinations.    Moral  training. 

lower  classes,  and  two  years  in  the  highest  class.  Every 
year  closed  with  a  very  formal  examination.  Before  this 
examination  took  place,  the  pupils  had  lessons  in  the  manner 
of  it,  so  that  they  might  come  prepared,  not  only  with  a 
knowledge  of  the  subjects,  but  also  of  the  laws  of  writing  for 
examination  ("scribendiad  examen  leges").  The  examina- 
tion was  conducted  by  a  commission  appointed  for  the 
purpose,  of  which  commission  the  Prefect  of  Studies  was  an 
ex  officio  member.  The  masters  of  the  classes,  though  they 
were  present,  and  could  make  remarks,  were  not  of  the 
examining  body.  For  the  viva  voce  the  boys  were  ushered 
in,  three  at  a  time,  before  the  solemn  conclave.  The  results 
of  the  examination,  both  written  and  verbal,  were  joined 
with  the  records  of  the  work  done  in  the  past  year ;  and  the 
names  of  those  pupils  who  had  distinguished  themselves 
were  then  published  in  order  of  merit,  but  the  poll  was 
arranged  alphabetically,  or  according  to  birthplace. 

§  25.  As  might  be  expected,  the  Jesuits  were  to  be  very 
careful  of  the  moral  and  religious  training  of  their  pupils. 
"Quam  raaxime  in  vitse  probitate  ac  bonis  artibus  doctrinaque 
proficiant  ad  Dei  gloriam."  {Ratio  Studd.,  quoted  by  Schmid.) 
And  Sacchini  tells  the  master  to  remember  how  honourable 
his  office  is ;  as  it  has  to  do,  not  with  grammar  only,  but 
also  with  the  science  and  practice  of  a  Christian  and  religious 
life :  "  atque  eo  quidem  ordine  ut  ipsa  ingenii  eruditio  sit 
expolitio  morum,  et  humana  literatura  divinae  ancilletur 
sa\  ientise."* 

*  Sacchini  writes  in  a  very  high  tone  on  this  subject.  The  following 
pasiage  is  striking  :  "  Gravitatem  sui  muneris  summasque  opportuni- 
tates  assidue  animo  verset  (magister).  .  .  .  '  Puerilis  institutio 
mundl  renovatio  est ;'  hsec  gymnasia  Dei  castra  sunt,  hie  bonorum  ooj' 
aium  semina  latent.     Video  solum  fundamentumque  republicse  quod 


48  THE  JESUITS. 

Care  of  health.     Punishments. 


Each  lesson  was  to  begin  with  prayer  or  the  sign  of  the 
Cross.  The  pupils  were  to  hear  Mass  every  morning,  and 
were  to  be  urged  to  frequent  confession  and  receiving  of  the 
Holy  Communion.  The  Father  Confessor  was  always  a 
Jesuit,  but  he  was  not  a  master  in  the  school. 

§  26.  The  bodily  health  also  was  to  be  carefully  attended 
to.  The  pupils  were  not  to  study  too  n)uch  or  too  long 
at  a  time.  Nothing  was  to  be  done  for  a  space  of  from  one 
or  two  hours  after  dinner.  On  holidays  excursions  were 
made  to  farms  in  the  country.* 

§  27.  Punishments  were  to  be  as  light  as  possible,  and 
the  master  was  to  shut  his  eyes  to  offences  whenever  he 
thought  he  might  do  so  with  safety.  Grave  oifences  were  to 
be  visited  with  corporal  punishment,  performed  by  a 
"corrector,"  who  was  not  a  member  of  the  Order."  Where  this 
chastisement  did  not  have  a  good  effect,  the  pupil  was  to  be 
expelled,  t 

multi  non  videant  interpositu  terrse. — Let  the  mind  of  the  master  dwell 
upon  the  responsibilities  of  his  office  and  its  immense  opportunitie'j. 

.  .  .  The  education  of  the  young  is  the  renovation  of  the  world. 
These  schools  are  the  camp  of  God  :  in  them  lie  the  seeds  of  all  that  is 
good.  There  I  see  the  foundation  and  ground -work  of  the  common- 
wealth, which  many  fail  to  see  from  its  being  underground."  Perhaps 
he  had  read  of  Trotzendorf  s  address  lo  a  school,  "  Hail  reverend 
divines,  learned  doctors,  worshipful  magistrates,  &c." 

•  "  Circa  illorum  valetudinem  peculiari  cura  animadvertat  (Rector)  ut 
et  in  laboribus  mentis  modum  servent,  at  in  iis  quae  ad  corpus  perti* 
nent,  religiosa  commoditate  tractentur,  ut  diutius  in  studiis  perstverara 
tarn  in  litteris  addiscendis  quam  in  eisdem  exercendis  ad  Dei  gloriam 
p.-»ssirii." — Ratio  Studd.,  quoted  by  Schmid.     See  also  infra  p.  62. 

t  The  following,  from  the  Ratio  Studd. ,  sounds  Jesuitical :  "  Nee 
publice  puniant  flagitia  qusedam  secretiora  sed  privatim  ;  aut  si  public^, 
alias  obtendant  causas,  et  satis  est  eos  qui  plectuntur  conscios  esse 
causa  rum." 

,(     .     .  '  7         ^^  A- 


THE  JESUITS.  49 


English  want  of  system. 


§  28,  The  dry  details  into  which  I  have  been  drawn  by 
faithfully  copying  the  manner  of  ihe  Ratio  Studiorum  may 
seem  to  the  reader  to  aiford  no  answer  to  the  question 
which  naturally  suggests  itself — To  what  did  the  school- 
system  of  the  Jesuits  owe  its  enormous  popularity?  But  in 
part,  at  least,  these  details  do  afford  an  answer.  They 
show  us  that  the  Jesuits  were  intensely  practical.  The 
Ratio  Studiorum  hardly  contains  a  single  principle ;  but 
what  it  does  is  this — it  poin*6  out  a  perfectly  attainable  goal, 
and  carefully  defines  the  road  by  which  that  goal  is  to  be 
approached.  For  each  class  was  prescribed  not  only  the  work 
to  be  done,  but  also  the  end  to  be  kept  in  view.  Thus 
method  reigned  throughout — perhaps  not  the  best  method, 
as  the  object  to  be  attained  was  assuredly  not  the  highest 
object — but  the  method,  such  as  it  was,  was  applied  with 
undeviating  exactness.  In  this  particular  the  Jesuit  schools 
contrasted  strongly  with  their  rivals  of  old,  as  indeed  with 
the  ordinary  school  of  the  present  day.  The  Head  Master, 
who  is  to  the  modern  English  school  what  the  General, 
Provincial,  Rector,  Prefect  of  Studies,  and  Ratio  Studiorum 
combined  were  to  a  school  of  the  Jesuits,  has  perhaps  no 
standard  in  view  up  to  which  the  boy  should  have  been 
brought  when  his  school  course  is  completed.*  The 
masters  of  forms  teach  just  those  portion  of  their  subject  in 
which  they  themselves  are  interested,  in  any  way  that  occurs 
to  them,  with  by  no  means  uniform  success ;  so  that  when 
two  forms  are  examined  with  the  same  examination  paper,  it 
Ls  no  very  uncommon  occurrence  for  the  lower  to  be  found 


•  As  the  Pubhc  Schools  Commission  pointed  out,  the  Head  Master 
often  thinks  of  nothing  but  the  attainment  of  University  honouia,  eviit 
when  (he  great  majority  of  his  pupils  are  not  going  to  the  University. 


50  THE  JESUITS. 


Jesuit  limitations. 


superior  to  the  higher.  It  is,  perhaps,  to  be  expected  that  a 
course  in  which  uniform  method  tends  to  a  definite  goal  would 
on  the  whole  be  more  successful  than  one  in  which  a  boy  hag 
to  accustom  himself  by  turns  to  half-a-dozen  different 
methods,  invented  at  haphazard  by  individual  masters  with 
different  aims  in  view,  if  indeed  they  have  any  aim  at  all. 

§  29.  I  have  said  that  the  object  which  the  Jesuits  pro- 
posed in  their  teaching  was  not  the  highest  object.  They 
did  not  aim  at  developing  all  ifie  faculties  of  their  pupils, 
but  mainly  the  receptive  and  reproductive  faculties.  When 
the  young  man  had  acquired  a  thorough  mastery  of  the 
Latin  language  for  all  purposes,  when  he  was  well  versed  in 
the  theological  and  philosophical  opinions  of  his  preceptors, 
when  he  was  skilful  in  dispute,  and  could  make  a  brilli.int 
display  from  the  resources  of  a  well-stored  memory,  he  had 
reached  the  highest  point  to  which  the  Jesuits  sought  to  lead 
him.*     Originality  and  independence  of  mind,  love  of  truth 

*  The  advantages  of  learning  by  heart  are  twofold,  says  Sacchini : 
"  Primum  memoriam  ipsam  perficiunt,  quod  est  in  totam  setatem  ad  uni- 
versa  negotia  injestimabile  commodum.  Deinde  suppellectilem  inde 
pulcherrimam  congregant  verborum  ac  rerum  :  quae  item,  quamdiu  vi- 
vant,  Usui  futura  sit :  cum  quse  setate  ilia  insederint  indelebilia  soleant 
permanere.  Magnam  itaque,  ubi  adoleverint,  gratiam  Prseceptori  ha- 
bebunt,  Cui  memoriae  debebunt  profectum,  magnamque  laetitiam  capient 
invenientes  quodammodo  domi  thesaurum  quem,  in  setate  cseteroqui 
parum  fructuosa,  prope  non  sentientes  pararint.  Enim  vero  quam  iispe 
viros  graves  atque  prsestantes  magnoque  jam  natu  videre  et  audire  est, 
dum  in  docta  ac  nobili  corona  jucundissime  quoedam  promunt  ex  iks 
quae  pueri  condiderunt  ? — First,  they  strengthen  the  memory  itself  and 
so  gain  an  inestimable  advantage  in  affairs  of  every  kind  throughout  life. 
Then  they  get  together  by  this  means  the  fairest  furniture  for  the  mind, 
both  of  thoughts  and  words,  a  stock  that  will  be  of  use  to  them  as  long 
»s  they  live,  since  that  which  settles  in  the  mind  in  youth  mostly  stays 
there.     And  when  the  lads  have  grown  up  they  will  feel  gratitude  to 


THE  JESUITS.  51 

Gains  from  memorizing. 

for  its  own  sake,  the  power  of  reflecting,  and  of  forming 
correct  judgments  were  not  merely  neglected — they  were 
suppressed  in  the  Jesuits'  system.  But  in  what  they  attempted 
they  were  eminently  successful,  and  their  success  went  a 
long  way  towards  securing  their  popularity.* 

the  m.ister  to  whom  they  are  indebted  for  their  good  memory ;  and  they 
will  take  delight  in  finding  within  them  a  treasure  which  at  a  time  of 
life  otherwise  unfruitful  they  have  been  preparing  almost  without  know- 
ing it.  How  often  we  see  and  hear  eminent  men  far  advanced  in  life, 
when  in  learned  and  noble  company,  take  a  special  delight  in  quoting  what 
they  stored  up  as  boys  !"  The  master,  he  says,  must  point  out  to  his 
pupils  the  advantages  we  derive  from  memory  ;  that  we  only  know  and 
possess  that  which  we  retain,  that  this  cannot  be  taken  from  us,  but  is 
with  us  always  and  is  always  ready  for  use,  a  living  library,  which  may 
be  studied  even  in  the  dark.  Boys  should  therefore  be  encouraged  to 
run  over  in  their  minds,  or  to  say  aloud,  what  they  have  learnt,  as  often 
as  opportunity  offers,  as  when  they  are  walking  or  are  by  themselves  : 
"  Ita  numquam  in  otio  futuros  otiosos ;  ita  minus  fore  solos  cum  soli 
erunt,  consuetudine  fruentes  sapientum.  .  .  .  Denique  curandum 
erit  ut  selecta  qusedam  ediscant  quae  deinde  in  quovis  studiorum  genera 
ac  vita  fere  omni  usui  smt  futura. — So  they  will  never  be  without  em- 
ployment when  unemployed,  never  less  alone  than  when  alone,  for  then 
they  profit  by  intercourse  with  the  wise.  .  .  .  To  sum  up,  take  care 
that  they  thoroughly  commit  to  memory  choice  selections  which  will  foi 
ever  after  be  of  use  to  them  in  every  kind  of  study,  and  nearly  every 
pursuit  in  life.  — (Cap.  viij. )  This  is  interesting  and  well  put,  but  we  see 
one  or  two  points  in  which  we  have  now  made  an  advance.  Learning 
by  heart  will  give  none  of  the  advantages  mentioned  unless  the  boys 
understand  the  pieces  and  delight  in  them.  Learning  by  heart 
strengthens,  no  doubt,  a  faculty,  but  nothing  large  enough  to  be  called 
"  the  memory."  And  the  Renascence  must  indeed  have  blinded  the  eyes 
of  the  man  to  whom  childhood  and  youth  seemed  an  "  setas  parura 
fructuosa  "!  Similarly,  Sturm  speaks  of  the  small  fry  "qui  in  extremis 
latent  classibus."  (Quoted  by  Parker.)  But  when  Pestalozzi  and 
Froebel  came  these  lay  hid  no  longer. 
*  Ranke,  speaking  of  the  success  of  the  Jesuit  schools,  says:  "  It 


53  THE  JESUITS. 

Popularity.    Kindness. 


§  30.  Their  popularity  was  due,  moreover,  to  the  means 
employed,  as  well  as  to  the  result  attained.  The  Jesuit 
teachers  were  to  lead,  not  drive  their  pupils,  to  make  theii 
learning,  not  merely  endurable,  but  even  acceptable,  "  dis- 
ciplinam  non  modo  tolerabilem,  sed  etiam  amabilem." 
Sacchini  expresses  himself  very  forcibly  on  this  subject. 
"It  is,"  says  he,  "the  unvarying  decision  of  wise  men, 
whether  in  ancient  or  modern  times,  that  the  instruction 
of  youth  will  be  always  best  when  it  is  pleasantest :  whence 
this  application  of  the  word  Indus.  The  tenderness  of 
youth  requires  of  us  that  we  should  not  overbtrain  it,  its 
innocence  that  we  should  abstain  from  harshness.  .  .  . 
That  which  enters  into  willing  ears  the  mind  as  it  were 
runs  to  welcome,  seizes  with  avidity,  carefully  stows  away, 
and  faithfully  preserves."*  The  pupils  were  therefore  to  be 
encouraged  in  every  way  to  take  kindly  to  their  learning. 
With  this  end  in  view  (and  no  doubt  other  objects  also), 

was  found  that  young  persons  learned  more  under  them  in  half  a  year 
than  with  others  in  two  years.  Even  Protestants  called  back  their 
children  from  distant  schools,  and  put  them  under  the  care  of  the 
Jesuits." — Hist,  of  Popes,  book  v,  p.  138.     Kelly's  Trans. 

In  France,  the  University  in  vain  procured  an  arrit  forbidding  the 
Parisians  to  send  away  their  sons  to  the  Jesuit  colleges:  "Jesuit  schools 
enjoyed  the  confidence  of  the  public  in  a  degree  which  placed  them 
beyond  competiiion."     (Pattison's  Casaubon,  p.  182.) 

Pattison  remarks  elsewhere  that  such  was  the  common  notion  of  the 
Jesuits' course  of  instruction  that  their  controversialists  could  treatanyone, 
even  a  ("^saubon,  who  had  not  gone  through  it,  as  an  uneducated  person. 

*  "  Sspicntum  hoc  omnium  seu  veterum  seu  recentum  constans  judi- 
cium est,  institutionem  puerilem  tum  fore  optimara  cum  jucundissima 
fiierit,  inde  enim  et  ludum  vocari.  Meretur  setatis  teneritas  ut  ne 
oneretur  :  meretur  innocentia  ut  ei  parcatur  .  .  .  Quae  libentibui 
auribus  instillantur,  adea  velut  occurrit  animus,  avide  suscipil,  studiosfl 
recondit,  fideliter  servat." 


THE  JESUITS.  53 


Sympathy  with  each  pupil. 


the  masters  were  carefully  to  seek  the  boys'  affections. 
'*  When  pupils  love  the  master,"  says  Sacchini,  "  they  will 
soon  love  his  teaching.  Let  him,  therefore,  show  an  interest 
in  everything  that  concerns  them  and  not  merely  in  their 
studies.  Let  him  rejoice  with  those  that  rejoice,  and 
not  disdain  to  weep  with  those  that  weep.  After  the 
example  of  the  Apostle  let  him  become  a  little  one  amongst 
little  ones,  that  he  may  make  them  adult  in  Christ,  and 
Christ  adult  in  them  .  .  .  Let  him  unite  the  grave  kind- 
ness and  authority  of  a  father  with  a  mother's  tenderness."* 
§  31.  In  order  that  learning  might  be  pleasant  to  the 
pupils,  it  was  necessary  that  tiiey  snould  not  be  overtasked. 
To  avoid  this,  the  master  had  to  study  the  character  and 
capacity  of  each  boy  in  his  class,  and  to  keep  a  book  with 
all  particulars  about  him,  and  marks  from  one  to  six  indi- 
cating proficiency.  Thus  the  master  formed  an  estimate 
of  what  should  be  required,  and  the  amount  varied  con- 
siderably with  the  pupil,  though  the  quality  of  the  work 
was  always  to  be  good. 

•  "  Conciliabit  facile  studiis  quos  primum  sibi  conciliarit.  Det  itaque 
omnem  operam  illorum  erga  se  observaniionem  ut  sapienter  colligat  et 
continenter  enutriat.  Ostendat,  sibi  res  eorum  curae  esse  non  solum 
quae  ad  aninium  sed  etiam  quae  ad  alia  pertinent.  Gaudeat  cum  gau- 
dentibus,  nee  dedignetur  flere  cum  flentibus.  Instar  Apostoli  inter  par- 
vulos  parvulus  fiat  quo  magnos  in  Christo  et  magnum  in  eis  Christum 
efficiat  .  .  .  Seriam  comitatem  et  paternam  gravitatem  cum 
materna  benignitate  permisceat. "  Unfortunately,  the  Jesuits'  kind 
manner  loses  its  value  from  being  due  not  so  much  to  kind  feeling  as  to 
Bome  ulterior  object,  or  to  a  rule  of  the  Order.  I  think  it  is  Jouvency 
who  recommends  that  when  a  boy  is  absent  from  sickness  or  other 
sufficient  reason,  the  master  sh  uld  send  daily  to  inquire  after  him, 
because  the  parents  will  bt  pleaded  by  such  attention.  When  the  motive 
of  the  inquiry  is  suspected,  th    parents  will  be  pleased  no  lor^jer. 


54  THE  JESUITS. 


Work  moderate  in  amount  and  difficulty. 

§  32.  Not  only  was  the  work  not  to  be  excessive,  it  was 
never  to  be  of  great  difficulty.  Even  the  grammar  was  to 
be  made  as  easy  and  attractive  as  possible.  "  I  think  it  a 
mistake  "  says  Sacchini,  "  to  introduce  at  an  early  stage  the 
more  thorny  difficulties  of  grammar :  ...  for  when  the 
pupils  have  become  familiar  with  the  eaiHer  parts,  use  will, 
by  degrees,  make  the  more  difficult  clear  to  them.  His 
mind  expanding  and  his  judgment  ripening  as  he  grows 
older  the  pupil  will  often  see  for  himself  that  which  he 
could  hardly  be  made  to  ■see  by  others.  Moreover,  in 
reading  an  author,  examples  of  grammatical  difficulties  will 
be  more  easily  observed  in  connection  with  the  context, 
and  will  make  more  impression  on  the  mind,  than  if  they 
are  taught  in  an  abstract  form  by  themselves.  Let  them 
then,  be  carefully  explained  whenever  they  occur."* 

§  33.  Perhaps  no  body  of  men  in  Europe  (the  Thugs 
may,  in  this  respect,  rival  them  in  Asia)  have  been  so  hated 
as  the  Jesuits.  I  once  heard  Frederick  Denison  Maurice 
say  he  thought  Kingsley  could  find  good  in  every  one 
except  the  Jesuits,  and,  he  added,  he  thought  he  could  find 
good  even  in  them.  But  why  should  a  devoted  Christian 
find  a  difficulty  in  seeing  good  in  the  Jesuits,  a  body  of  men 
whose  devotion  to  their  idea  of  Christian  duty  has  never 


*  "  Errorem  existimo  statim  initio  spinosiores  quasdam  grammaticse 
difficultates  inculcare  .  .  .  cum  enim  planioribus  insueverint 
difficiliora  paulatim  usus  explanabit.  Quin  et  capacior  subinde  mens  ac 
firmius  cum  setate  judicium,  quod  alio  monstrante  persegre  unquam 
percepisset  per  sese  non  raro  intelliget.  Exempla  quoque  talium  rerum 
dum  prselegitur  autor  facilius  in  orationis  contextu  agnoscentur  et 
penetrabunt  in  animos  quam  si  solitaria  et  abscissa  proponantur. 
Quamobrem  faciendum  erit  ut  quoties  occurrunt  diligenter  enu* 
decntur.' 


THE  JESUITS.  55 


The  Society  the  Army  of  the  Church. 

been  surpassed  ?*  The  difficulty  arose  from  differences  in 
ideal.  Both  held  that  the  ideal  Christian  would  do  every- 
thing "to  the  greater  glory  of  God,"  or  as  the  Jesuits  put  it 
in  their  business-like  fashion,  "  A.M.D.G.,"  {i.e.,  ad  majorem 
Dt'i  gloriam).  But  Maurice  and  Kingsley  thought  of  a 
divine  idea  for  every  man.  The  Jesuits'  idea  lost  sight  of  the 
individual.  Like  their  enemy,  Carlyle,  the  Jesuits  in  effect 
worshipped  strength,  but  Carlyle  thought  of  the  strength  of 
the  individual,  the  Jesuits  of  the  strength  of  "  the  Catholic 
Church."  "The  Cathohc  Church"  was  to  them  the 
manifested  kingdom  of  God.  Everything  therefore  that 
gave  power  to  the  Church  tended  "  A.M.D.G."  The  Com- 
pany of  Jesus  was  the  regular  army  of  the  Church,  so, 
arguing  logically  from  their  premises,  they  made  the  glory 
of  God  and  the  success  of  the  Society  convertible  terms. 

§  34.  Thus  their  conception  was  a  purely  military  con- 
ception. A  commander-in-chief,  if  he  were  an  ardent  patriot 
and  a  great  general,  would  do  all  he  could  to  make  the  army 
powerful.  He  would  care  much  for  the  health,  morals,  and 
training  of  the  soldiers,  but  always  with  direct  reference  to 
the  army.  He  would  attend  to  everything  that  made  a 
man  a  better  soldier;  beyond  this  he  would  not  concern 
himself.  In  his  eyes  the  army  would  be  everything,  and  a 
soldier  nothing  but  a  part  of  it,  just  as  a  Hnk  is  only  a 
part  of  a  chain.  Paulsen,  speaking  of  the  Jesuits,  says  truly 
that  no  great  organization  can  exist  without  a  root  idea. 
The  root  idea  of  the  army  is  the  sacrifice  and  annihilation 
of  the  individual,  that  the  body  may  be  fused  together  and 


•  See,  e.g.,  marvellous  instances  of  their  self-devotion  in  that  most 
interesting  book,  Francis  Parkman's  Jesuits  in  N.  America  (Boston, 
Little  &  Co.,  loth  edition,  1876). 


56  THE  JESUITS. 

Their  pedagogy  not  disinterested. 


so  gain  a  strength  greater  than  that  of  any  number  of  indi- 
viduals. Formed  on  this  idea  the  army  acts  all  together  and 
in  obedience  to  a  single  will,  and  no  mob  can  stand  its 
charge.  Ignatius  Loyola  and  succeeding  Generals  took  vp 
this  idea  and  formed  an  army  for  the  Church,  an  army  that 
became  the  wonder  and  the  terror  of  all  men.  Never,  as 
Compayr^  says,  had  a  body  been  so  sagaciously  organized, 
or  had  wielded  so  great  resources  for  good  and  for  evil.* 
(See  Buisson,  ij,  14 19.) 

§  35.  To  the  English  school.iiaster  the  Jesuits  must 
always  be  interesting,  if  for  no  other  reason  at  least  for  this — 
that  they  were  so  intensely  practical.  "Zes/Ssuiies  ne  sont 
pas  des  pedagogues  assez  desinteresses  pour  nous  plaire. — The 
Jesuits  as  schoolmasters,"  says  M.  Compayr^,  "are  not 
disinterested  enough  for  us."  (Buisson,  sub  v.  /esuiies,  ad  f.). 
But  disinterested  pedagogy  is  not  much  to  the  mind  of  the 
Englishman.  It  does  not  seem  to  know  quite  what  it  would 
be  after,  and  deals  in  generalities,  such  as  "  Education  is  not 
a  means  but  an  end ;"  and  the  end  being  somewhat  indefinite, 
the  means  are  still  more  wanting  in  precision.     This  vague- 

•  I  have  referred  to  Francis  Parkman,  who  has  chronicled  the 
marvellous  self-devotion  and  heroism  of  the  Jesuit  missionaries  in 
Canada.  Such  a  witness  may  be  trusted  when  he  says:  "The  Jesuit 
Vfas  as  often  a  fanatic  for  his  Order  as  for  his  faith  ;  and  oftener  yet, 
the  two  fanaticisms  mingled  in  him  inextricably.  Ardently  as  he  burned 
for  the  saving  of  souls,  he  would  have  none  saved  on  the  Upper  Lakes 
except  by  his  brethren  and  himself.  He  claimed  a  monopoly  of  con- 
version with  its  attendant  monopoly  of  toil,  hardships,  and  martyrdom. 
Often  disinterested  for  himself,  he  was  inordinately  ambitious  for  the 
great  corporate  power  in  which  he  had  merged  his  own  personality ; 
and  here  lies  one  of  the  causes,  among  many,  of  the  seeming  contradic- 
tions which  abound  in  the  annals  of  the  Order." — The  Discovery  of  thl 
Great  West,  by  F.  Parkman,  Ixjndon,  1869,  p.  28. 


THE  JESUITS.  57 


Practical.    The  forces :  i.  Master's  influence. 

ness  is  what  the  English  master  hates.  He  prefers  not  to 
'rouble  himself  about  the  end.  The  wisdom  of  his  ancestors 
has  settled  that,  and  he  can  direct  his  attention  to  what 
really  interests  him-^the  practical  details.  In  this  he  le- 
sembles  the  Jesuits.  The  end  has  been  settled  for  them  by 
their  founder.  They  revel  in  practical  details,  in  which  they 
are  truly  great,  and  here  we  may  learn  much  from  them. 
"Ratio  applied  to  studies"  says  Father  Eyre,*  "more 
naturally  means  Method  than  Principle;  and  our  Patio 
Studiorum  is  essentially  a  Method  or  System  of  teaching 
and  learning."  Here  is  a  method  that  has  been  worked 
uniformly  and  with  singular  success  for  three  centuries,  and 
can  still  give  a  good  account  of  its  old  rivals.  But  will  it 
hold  its  own  against  the  late  Reformers?  As  regards  intel- 
lectual training  the  new  school  seeks  to  draw  out  the  faculties 
of  the  young  mind  by  employing  them  on  subjects  in  which 
it  is  interested.  The  Jesuits  fixed  a  course  of  study  which, 
as  they  frankly  recognized,  could  not  be  made  interesting. 
So  they  endeavoured  to  secure  accuracy  by  constant  repeti- 
tion, and  relied  for  industry  on  two  motive  powers :  ist,  the 
personal  influence  of  the  master;  and,  2nd,  "the  spur  of 
industry  " — emulation. 

§  36.  To  acquire  "influence"  has  ever  been  the  main 
object  of  the  Society,  and  his  devotion  to  this  object  makes 
a  great  distinction  between  the  Jesuit  and  most  other 
instructors.  His  notion  of  the  task  was  thus  expressed  by 
J''ather  Gerard,  S.  J.,  at  the  Educational  Conference  of  1884 : 
"  Teaching  is  an  art  amongst  arts.  To  be  worthy  of  the 
nam'?  it  must  be  the  work  of  an  individual  upon  individuals. 
Tht  true  teacher  must  understand,  appreciate,  and  sympa- 

•  In  a  letter  dated  from  Stonyhurst,  22nd  April,  i88a 


58  THE  JESUITS. 

2.  Emulation. 


thize  with  those  who  are  committed  to  him.  He  must  be 
daily  discovering  what  there  is  {and  undoubtedly  there  is 
something  in  each  of  them)  capable  of  fruitful  development, 
and  contriving  how  better  to  get  at  them  and  to  evoke  what- 
ever possibilities  there  are  in  them  for  good."  The  Jesuit 
master,  then,  tried  to  gain  influence  over  the  boys  and  to 
use  that  influence  for  many  purposes ;  to  make  them  work 
well  being  one  of  these,  but  not  perhaps  the  most  important. 

§  37.  As  for  emulation,  no  instructors  have  used  it  so 
elaborately  as  the  Jesuits.  In  most  English  schools  the 
prizes  have  no  effect  whatever  except  on  the  first  three  or 
four  boys,  and  the  marking  is  so  arranged  that  those  who 
take  the  lead  in  the  first  few  lessons  can  keep  their  position 
without  much  effort.  This  clumsy  system  would  not  suit 
the  Jesuits.  They  often  for  prize-giving  divide  a  class  into 
a  number  of  small  groups,  the  boys  in  each  group  being 
approximately  equal,  and  a  prize  is  offered  for  each  group. 
The  class  matches,  too,  stimulate  the  weaker  pupils  even 
more  than  the  strong. 

§  38,  In  conclusion,  I  will  give  the  chief  points  of  the 
system  in  the  words  of  one  of  its  advocates  and  admirers, 
who  was  himself  educated  at  Stonyhurst : 

"  Let  us  now  try  to  put  together  the  various  pieces  of 
this  school  machinery  and  study  the  effect.  We  have  seen 
that  the  boys  have  masters  entirely  at  their  disposition,  not 
only  at  class  time,  but  at  recreation  time  after  supper  in  the 
night  Reading  Rooms.  Each  day  they  record  victory  or 
defeat  in  the  recurring  exercises  or  themes  upon  various 
matters.  By  the  quarterly  papers  or  examinations  in  com- 
position, for  which  nine  hours  are  assigned,  the  order  of 
merit  is  fixed,  and  this  order  entails  many  little  privileges 
and  precedencies,  in   chapel,    refectory,    class   room,  and 


THE  JESUITS.  59 


A  pupil's  summing--up. 


elsewhere.  Each  master,  if  he  prove  a  success  and  his 
health  permit,  continues  to  be  the  instructor  of  the  boys 
in  his  class  during  the  space  of  six  yeais.  '  It  is  obvious.* 
says  Sheil,  in  his  account  of  Stonyhurst,  'that  much  of  a 
boy's  acquirements,  and  a  good  deal  of  the  character  of 
his  taste,  must  have  depended  upon  the  individual  to  whose 
instructions  he  was  thus  almost  exclusively  confined.'  And 
in  many  cases  the  effects  must  be  a  greater  interest  felt  in 
the  students  by  their  teachers,  a  mutual  attachment  founded 
on  long  acquaintance,  and  a  more  thorough  knowledge,  on 
the  part  of  the  master,  of  the  weak  and  strong  points  of  his 
pupils.  Add  to  the  above,  the  *  rival '  and  '  side '  system, 
the  effect  of  challenges  and  class  combats ;  of  the  wearing 
of  decorations  and  medals  by  the  Imperators  on  Sundays, 
Festival  Days,  Concertation  Days,  and  Examination  Days  ; 
of  the  extraordinary  work — done  much  more  z.%  private  than 
as  class  work — helping  to  give  individuality  to  the  boy's 
exertions,  which  might  otherwise  be  merged  in  the  routine 
work  of  the  class ;  and  the  '  free  time '  given  for  improve- 
ment on  wet  evenings  and  after  night  prayers ;  add  the 
Honours  Matter ;  the  Reports  read  before  the  Rector  and 
all  subordinate  Superiors,  the  Professors,  and  whole  body 
of  Students;  add  the  competition  in  each  class  and  between 
the  various  classes,  and  even  between  the  various  colleges  in 
England  of  the  Society ;  and  only  one  conclusion  can  be 
arrived  at.  It  is  a  system  which  everyone  is  free  to  admire 
01  think  inferior  to  some  other  preferred  by  him ;  but  it  is 
a  system."  {Stonyhurst  College,  Present  and  Fasty  by  A. 
Hewitson,  2nd  edition,  1878,  pp.  214,  ff.) 

§  39.  Yes,  it  is  a  system,  a  system  built  up  by  the  united 
efforts  of  many  astute  intellects  and  showing  marvellous 


6o  THE  JESUITS. 

Some  books. 

skill  in  selecting  means  to  attain  a  clearly  conceived  end. 
There  is  then  in  the  history  of  education  little  that  should 
be  more  interesting  or  might  be  more  instructive  to  the 
master  of  an  English  public  school  than  the  chapter  abou* 
the  Jesuits.* 

•  The  best  account  I  have  seen  of  life  in  a  Jesuit  school  is  in 
Erinneru7igen  eines  chemaligen  Jesuitenzoglings  (Leipzig,  Brockhaus, 
1862).  The  writer  (Kohler  ?)  says  that  he  has  become  an  evangelical 
clergyman,  but  there  is  no  hostile  feeling  shown  to  his  old  instructors, 
and  the  narrative  bears  the  strongest  internal  evidence  of  accuracy. 
Some  of  the  Jesuit  devices  mentioned  are  very  ingenious.  All  house 
masters  who  have  adopted  the  cubicle  arrangement  of  dormitories  know 
how  difficult  it  is  to  keep  the  boys  in  their  own  cubicles.  The  Jesuits 
have  the  cubicles  barred  across  at  the  top,  and  the  locks  on  the  doors 
are  so  constructed  that  though  they  can  be  opened  from  the  inside  they 
cannot  be  shut  again.  The  Fathers  at  Freiburg  (in  Breisgau)  opened  a 
"  tuck-shop"  for  the  boys,  and  gave  "  week's-pay  "  in  counters  which 
passed  at  their  own  shop  and  nowhere  else.  The  author  speaks 
warmly  of  the  kindness  of  the  Fathers  and  of  their  care  for  health  and 
recreation.  But  their  ways  were  inscrutable  and  every  boy  felt  himself 
in  the  hands  of  a  human  providence.  As  the  boys  go  out  for  a  walk, 
one  of  them  is  detained  by  the  porter,  who  says  "  the  Rector  wants  to 
speak  to  you."  On  their  way  back  the  boys  meet  a  diligence  in  which 
sits  their  late  comrade  waving  adieus.     He  has  been  expelled. 

Another  book  which  throws  much  light  on  Jesuit  pedagogy  is  by  a  Jesuit 
— La  Discipline,  par  le  R.  P.  Emmanuel  Barbier  (Paris,  V.  Palme,  2nd 
edition,  1888).  I  will  give  a  specimen  in  a  loose  translation,  as  it  may 
interest  the  reader  to  see  how  carefully  the  Jesuits  have  studied  the 
master's  difficulties.  "  The  master  in  charge  of  the  boys,  especially 
in  play-time,  in  his  first  intercourse  with  them,  has  no  greater  snare  in 
his  way  than  taking  his  power  for  granted,  and  trusting  to  the  strength 
of  his  will  and  his  knowledge  of  the  world,  especially  as  he  is  at  first 
lulled  into  security  by  the  deferential  manner  of  his  pupils. 

"That  master  who  goes  off  with  such  ease  from  the  very  first,  to  whom 
the  carrying  out  of  all  the  rules  seems  the  simplest  thing  in  the  world, 
who  in  the  very  first  hour  he  is  with  them  has  already  made  himsc!/ 


THE  JESUITS.  6 1 


Barbier's  advice  to  new  master. 

liked,  almost  popular,  with  his  pupils,  who  shows  no  more  anxitty 
about  hi?  work  than  he  must  show  to  keep  his  character  for  good  sense, 
that  ny.sler  is  indeed  to  be  pitied  ;  he  is  most  likely  a  lost  man.  lie 
will  soon  have  to  choose  one  of  two  things,  either  to  shut  his  eyes  and 
put  up  with  all  the  irregularities  he  thought  he  had  done  away  with,  or 
to  break  with  a  past  that  he  would  wish  forgotten,  and  engage  in  open 
conflict  with  the  boys  who  are  inclined  to  set  him  at  defiance.  These 
cases  are  we  trust  rare.  But  many  believe  with  a  kind  of  rash 
ignorance  and  in  spite  of  the  warnings  of  experience  that  the  good 
feelings  of  their  pupils  will  work  together  to  maintain  their  authority. 
They  have  been  told  that  this  authority  should  be  mild  and  endeared 
by  acts  of  kindness.  So  they  set  about  crowning  the  edifice  without 
making  sure  of  the  foundations  ;  and  taking  the  title  of  authority  for  its 
possession  they  spend  all  their  efforts  in  lightening  a  yoke  of  which  no 
one  really  bears  the  weight. 

"  In  point  of  fact  the  first  steps  often  determine  the  whole  course.  For 
this  reason  you  will  attach  extreme  importance  to  what  I  am  now  going 
to  advise  : 

"The  chief  characteristic  in  your  conduct  towards  the  boys  during  the 
first  few  weeks  should  be  an  extreme  reserve.  However  far  you  go  in 
this,  you  can  hardly  overdo  it.  So  your  first  attitude  is  clearly 
defined. 

"You  have  everj'thing  to  observe,  the  individual  character  of  each  boy 
and  the  general  tendencies  and  feelings  of  the  whole  body.  But  be  sure 
of  one  thing,  viz. ,  that  you  are  observed  also,  and  a  careful  study  is  made 
both  of  your  strong  points  and  of  your  weak.  Your  way  of  speaking  and 
of  giving  orders,  the  tone  of  your  voice,  your  gestures,  disclose  your 
character,  your  tastes,  your  failings,  to  a  hundred  boys  on  the  alert  to 
pounce  upon  them.  One  is  summed  up  long  before  one  has  the  least 
notion  of  it.  Try  then  to  remain  impenetrable.  You  should  never 
give  up  your  reserve  till  you  are  master  of  the  situation. 

"For  the  rest,  let  there  be  no  affectation  about  you.  Don't  attempt  to 
put  on  a  severe  manner  ;  answer  politely  and  simply  your  pupils' 
questions,  but  let  it  be  in  few  words,  and  avoid  conversation.  All 
depends  on  that.  Let  there  be  no  chatting  with  them  in  these  early 
days.  You  cannot  be  too  cautious  in  this  respect.  Boys  have  such  a 
polite,  such  a  taking  way  with  them  in  drawing  out  information  about 
your   impressions,  your   tastes,  your  antecedents ;   don't   attempt   the 

7 


62  THE  JESUITS. 


Loyola  and  Montaigne.    Port  Royal. 

diplomate ;  don't  match  your  skill  against  theirs.  You  cannot  chat  with- 
out coming  out  of  your  shell,  so  to  speak.  Instead  of  this,  you  must 
pvizzle  them  by  your  reserve,  and  drive  them  to  this  admission  :  '  We 
don't  know  what  to  make  of  our  new  master.' 

"  Do  I  advise  you  then  to  be  on  the  defensive  throughout  the  whole 
year  and  like  a  stranger  among  your  pupils  ?  No  !  a  thousand  times, 
No  !  It  is  just  to  make  their  relations  with  you  simple,  confiding,  I 
might  say  cordial,  without  the  least  danger  to  your  authority,  that  I 
endeavour  to  raise  this  authority  at  first  beyond  the  reach  of  assault." — 
La  Discipline,  chap,  v,  pp.  31  ff. 

In  this  book  we  see  the  best  side  of  the  Jesuits.  They  believe  in 
their  "mission,"  and  this  belief  throws  light  on  many  things.  Those 
who  hate  the  Jesuits  have  often  extolled  the  wisdom  of  Montaigne,  when 
he  says  :  "  We  have  not  to  train  up  a  soul,  nor  yet  a  body,  hut  a  man; 
and  we  cannot  divide  him."  Can  they  see  no  wisdom  in  this?  "  Let 
your  mind  be  filled  with  the  thought  that  both  soul  and  body  have  been 
created  by  the  Hand  of  God  :  we  must  account  to  Him  for  these  two 
parts  of  our  being ;  and  we  are  not  required  to  weaken  one  of  them  out 
of  love  for  the  Creator.  We  should  love  the  body  in  the  same  degree 
that  He  could  love  it."  This  is  what  Loyola  wrote  in  1548  to  Francis 
Borgia  (Compayre,  Doctrines,  S^c,  vol.  j,  179).  But  if  we  wish  to  see  the 
•other  side  of  the  Jesuit  character,  we  have  only  to  look  at  the  Jesuit  as  a 
controversialist.  We  sometimes  see  children  hiding  things  and  then 
having  a  pretence  hunt  for  them.  The  Jesuits  are  no  children,  but  in 
arguing  they  pretend  to  be  searching  for  conclusions  which  are  settled 
before  arguments  are  thought  of.  See,  e.g.,  the  attack  on  the  Port 
Royalists  in  Les  Jesuites  Instituteurs,  par  le  P.  Ch.  Daniel,  1S80,  in 
which  the  Jesuit  sets  himself  to  maintain  this  thesis  :  "  D'une  source 
aussi  profondement  infectee  du  poison  de  I'heresie,  il  ne  pouvait  sortir 
rien  d'  absolument  bon  "  (p.  123).  One  good  point  he  certainly  makes, 
and  in  my  judgment  one  only,  in  comparing  the  Port  Royalist  schools 
with  the  schools  of  Jesuits.  Methods  which  answer  with  very  small 
numbers  may  not  do  with  large  numbers:  "You  might  as  well  try  to 
extend  your  gardening  operations  to  agriculture"  (p.  102). 


V. 

RABELAIS. 

(1483-1553.) 


§  I.  To  great  geniuses  it  is  given  to  think  themselves 
in  a  measure  free  from  the  ordinary  notions  of  their  time 
and  often  to  anticipate  the  discoveries  of  a  future  age.  In 
all  literature  there  is  perhaps  hardly  a  more  striking  instance 
of  this  "detached"  thinking  than  we  find  in  Rabelais' 
account  of  the  education  of  Gargantua. 

§  2.  We  see  in  Rabelais  an  enthusiasm  for  learning  and 
a  tendency  to  verbal  realism ;  that  is,  he  turned  to  the  old 
writers  for  instruction  about  things.  So  far  he  was  a  child 
of  the  Renascence.  But  in  other  respects  he  advanced  far 
beyond  it. 

§  3.  After  a  scornful  account  of  the  ordinary  school 
books  and  methods  by  which  Gargantua  "though  he 
Eludied  hard,  did  nevertheless  profit  nothing,  but  only  grew 
ihei:iby  foolish,  simple,  doited,  and  blockish,"  Rabelais 
decides  that  "  it  were  better  for  him  to  learn  nothing  at  all 
than  to  be  taught  suchlike  books  under  suchlike  school- 
masters." All  this  old  lumber  must  be  swept  away,  and  in 
two  years  a  youth  may  acquire  a  better  judgment,  a  better 


64  RABELAIS. 

Rabelais'  ideal.    A  new  start. 

manner,  and  more  command  of  language  than  could  ever 
have  been  obtained  by  the  old  method. 

We  are  then  introduced  to  the  model  pupil.  The  end 
of  education  has  been  declared  to  be  sapiens  et  eloquent 
fietas  ;  and  we  find  that  though  Rabelais  might  have  sub- 
stituted knowledge  for  piety,  he  did  caie  for  piety,  and 
valued  very  highly  both  wisdom  and  eloquence.  The 
eloquent  Roman  was  the  ideal  of  the  Renascence,  and 
Rabelais'  model  pupil  expresses  himself  "  with  gestures  so 
proper,  pronunciation  so  distinct,  a  voice  so  eloquent, 
language  so  well  turned  and  in  such  good  Latin  that  he 
seemed  rather  a  Gracchus,  a  Cicero,  an  ^milius  of  the  time 
past  than  a  youth  of  the  present  age." 

§  4.  So  a  Renascence  tutor  is  appointed  for  Gargantua 
and  administers  to  him  a  potion  that  makes  him  forget  all 
he  has  ever  learned.  He  then  puts  him  through  a  very 
different  course.  lake  all  wise  instructors  he  first  endeavours 
to  secure  the  will  of  the  pupil.  He  allows  Gargantua  to  go 
the  accustomed  road  till  he  can  convince  him  it  is  the 
wrong  one.  This  seems  to  me  a  remarkable  proof  of 
wisdom.  How  often  does  the  "  new  master  "  break  abruptly 
with  the  past,  and  raise  the  opposition  of  the  pupil  by  dis- 
praise of  all  he  has  already  done  !  By  degrees  Ponocrates, 
the  model  tutor,  inspired  in  his  pupil  a  great  desire  for 
improvement.  This  he  did  by  bringing  him  into  the 
society  of  learned  men,  who  filled  him  with  ambition  to  be 
like  them.  Thereupon  Gargantua  "  put  himself  into  such  a 
train  of  study  that  he  lost  not  any  hour  in  the  day,  hut 
emploi'ed  all  his  time  in  learning  and  honest  knowledge." 
The  day  was  to  begin  at  4  a.m.,  with  reading  of  "some 
chapter  of  the  Holy  Scripture,  and  oftentimes  he  g.ive 
himself  to  revere,  adore,  pray,  and  send  up  his  supplications 


RABELAIS.  65 

Religion.     Study  of  Tilings. 

to  that  good  God,  whose  word  did  show  His  majesty  and 
marvellous  judgments."  This  is  the  only  hint  we  get  in 
this  part  of  the  book  on  the  subject  of  religious  or  moral 
education  :  the  training  is  directed  to  the  intellect  and  the 
body. 

§  5.  The  remarkable  feature  in  Rabelais'  curriculum  is 
this,  that  it  is  concerned  mainly  with  things.  Of  the  Seven 
Liberal  Arts  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  iirst  three  were  purely 
formal:  grammar,  logic,  rhetoric;  while  the  following  course  : 
arithmetic,  geometry,  astronomy,  and  music,  were  not.  The 
effect  of  the  Renascence  was  to  cause  increasing  neglect  of 
the  Quadrivium,  but  Rabelais  cares  for  the  Quadrivium 
only ;  Gargantua  studies  arithmetic,  geometry,  astronomy, 
and  music,  and  the  Trivium  is  not  mentioned.  Great  use 
is  made  of  books  and  Gargantua  learned  them  by  heart ; 
but  all  that  he  learned  he  at  once  "  applied  to  practical 
cases  concerning  the  estate  of  man."  It  was  the  substance 
of  the  reading,  not  the  form,  that  was  thought  of.  At  dinner 
"  if  they  thought  good  they  continued  reading  or  began  to 
discourse  merrily  together;  speaking  first  of  the  virtue, 
propriety,  efficacy,  and  nature  of  all  that  was  served  in  at 
that  table  ;  of  bread,  of  wine,  of  water,  of  salt,  of  flesh,  fish, 
fruits,  herbs,  roots,  and  of  their  dressing.  By  means  whereof 
he  learned  in  a  little  time  all  the  passages  that  on  these 
subjects  are  to  be  found  in  Pliny,  Athenaeus,  &c.  Whilst 
they  talked  of  these  things,  many  times  to  be  more  certain  they 
ca\ised  the  very  books  to  be  brought  to  the  table ;  and  so 
well  and  perfectly  did  he  in  his  memory  retain  the  things 
above  said,  that  in  that  time  there  was  not  a  physician  thav 
knew  half  so  much  as  he  did."  Again,  out  of  doors  he  was  to 
observe  trees  and  plants,  and  "  compare  them  with  what  is 
written  of  them  in  the  books  of  the  ancients,  such  as  Theo- 


66  RABELAIS. 

"  Anschauung."    Hand-work.     Books  and  Life. 


phrastus,  Dioscorides,  &c."  Here  again,  actual  realism  was 
to  be  joined  with  verbal  realism,  for  Gargantua  was  to  carry 
home  with  him  great  handfuls  for  herborising.  Rabelais 
even  recommends  studying  the  face  of  the  heavens  at  night, 
and  then  observing  the  change  that  has  taken  place  at 
4  in  the  morning.  So  he  seems  to  have  been  the  first 
writer  on  education  (and  the  first  by  a  long  interval),  who 
would  teach  about  things  by  observing  the  things  themselves. 
It  was  this  Anschauuvgs-prinzip — use  of  sense-impressions — 
that  Pestalozzi  extended  and  claimed  as  his  invention  two 
centuries  and  a  half  later.  Rabelais  also  gives  a  hint  of  the 
use  of  hand-work  as  well  as  head-work.  Gargantua  and 
his  fellows  "  did  recreate  themselves  in  bottling  hay,  in 
cleaving  and  sawing  wood,  and  in  threshing  sheaves  of 
corn  in  the  barn.  They  also  studied  the  art  of  painting  or 
carving."  The  course  was  further  connected  with  life  by 
visits  to  the  various  handicraftsmen,  in  whose  workshops 
"  they  did  learn  and  consider  the  industry  and  invention  of 
the  trader." 

Thus,  even  in  the  time  of  the  Renascence,  Rabelais  saw 
that  the  life  of  the  intellect  might  be  nourished  by  many 
things  besides  books.  But  books  were  still  kept  in  the 
highest  place.  Even  on  a  holiday,  which  occurred  on  some 
fine  and  clear  day  once  a  month,  "though  spent  without 
books  or  lecture,  yet  was  the  day  not  without  profit ;  for  in 
the  meadows  they  repeated  certain  pleasant  verses  of  Virgil's 
Agriculture,  of  Hesiod,  of  Politian's  Husbandry."  They 
also  turned  Latin  epigrams  into  French  rondeaux. 

This  course  of  study,  "  although  at  first  it  seemed  diflScult, 
yet  soon  became  so  sweet,  so  easy,  and  so  delightful,  that  it 
seemed  rather  the  recreation  of  a  king  than  the  study  of  a 
scholar." 


RABELAIS.  67 


Training  the  body. 


In  preferring  the  Quadrivial  studies  to  the  Trivial,  and 
still  more  in  his  use  of  actual  things,  Rabelais  separates 
himself  from  all  the  teachers  of  his  time. 

§  6.  Very  remarkable  too  is  the  attention  he  pays  to 
physical  e  lucation.  A  day  does  not  pass  on  which  Gargantua 
does  not  gallantly  exercise  his  body  as  he  has  already 
exerci  5ed  his  mind.  The  exercises  prescribed  are  very  various, 
and  include  running,  jumping,  swimming,  with  practice  on  the 
horizontal  bar  and  with  dumb-bells,  &c.  But  in  one  respect 
Rabelais  seems  behind  our  own  writer,  Richard  Mulcaster. 
Mulcaster  trained  the  body  simply  with  a  view  to  health. 
Rabelais  is  thinking  of  the  gentleman,  and  all  his  physical 
exercises  are  to  prepare  him  for  the  gentleman's  occupation, 
war.  The  constant  preparation  for  war  had  a  strong  and  in 
some  respects  a  very  beneficial  influence  on  the  education  of 
gentlemen  in  the  fifteen  and  sixteen  hundreds,  as  it  has  had 
on  that  of  the  Germans  in  the  eighteen  hundreds.  But  to  be 
ready  to  slaughter  one's  fellow  creatures* is  not  an  ideal  aim 
in  education ;  and  besides  this,  one  half  of  the  human  race 
can  never  (as  far  as  we  can  judge  at  present)  be  aifected  by 
it.  We  therefore  prefer  the  physical  training  recommended 
by  the  Englishman. 

Mr.  Walter  Besant  by  his  Readings  in  Rabelais  (Blackwood,  1883), 
has  put  Rabelais'  wit  and  wisdom  where  we  can  get  at  most  of  it  with- 
out searching  in  the  dung-hill.  But  he  has  unfortunately  omitted 
Gaigantua's  letter  to  Pantagruel  at  Paris  (book  ij,  chap.  8),  where  we 
get  the  curriculum  as  proposed  by  Rabelais,  a  chapter  in  which  no 
if.iivengei  is  needed. 

I  will  gire  some  extracts  from  it : — 

"Although  my  deceased  father  of  happy  memory,  Grangousier,  had 
bent  his  best  endeavours  to  make  me  profit  in  all  perfection  and 
political  knowledge,  and  that  my  labour  and  study  was  fully  correspon- 
dent to,  yea,  went  beyond  his  desire  j  nevertheless,  the  time  then  was  not 


68  RABELAIS. 

Rabelais'  Curriculum. 


■o  proper  and  fit  for  learning  as  it  is  at  present,  neither  had  T 
plenty  of  such  good  masters  as  thou  hast  had  ;  for  that  time  was  dark- 
some, obscured  with  clouds  of  Ignorance  and  savouring  a  little  of  tlif 
infelicity  and  calamity  of  the  Goths,  who  had,  wherever  they  set  footing, 
destroyed  all  good  literature,  which  in  my  age  hath  by  the  Divine  Good- 
ness been  restored  unto  its  former  light  and  dignity,  and  that  with  such 
amendment  and  increase  of  knowledge  that  now  hardly  should  I  be 
admitted  unto  the  first  form  of  the  little  grammar  school  boys  {des 
petits  grimaulx) :  I  say,  I,  who  in  my  youthful  days  was  (and  that  justly) 
reputed  the  most  learned  of  that  age.  Now  it  is  that  the  old  knowledges 
(disciplines)  are  restored,  the  languages  revived.  Greek  (without  which 
it  is  a  shame  for  any  one  to  call  himself  learned),  Hebrew,  Chaldee,  Latin. 
Printing  (Des  impressions)  too,  so  elegant  and  exact,  is  in  use,  which 
in  mv  dav  was  invented  by  divine  inspiration,  as  cannon  were  by  sug- 
gestion of  the  devil.  All  the  world  is  full  of  men  of  knowledge,  of  very 
learned  teachers,  of  large  libraries  ;  so  that  it  seems  to  me  that  neither 
in  the  age  of  Plato,  nor  of  Cicero,  nor  of  Papinian  was  there  such  con- 
venience for  studying  as  there  is  now.  I  see  the  robbers,  hangmen, 
adventurers,  ostlers  of  to-day  more  learned  then  the  doctors  and  the 
preachers  of  my  youth.  Why,  women  and  girls  have  aspired  to  the 
heavenly  manna  of  gogd  learning  ...  I  mean  you  to  learn  the 
languages  perfectly  first  of  all,  the  Greek  as  Quintilian  wishes,  then  the 
Latin,  then  Hebrew  for  the  Scriptures,  and  Chaldee  and  Arabic  at  the 
same  time ;  and  that  thou  form  thy  style  in  Greek  on  Plato,  in  Latin 
on  Cicero.  Let  there  be  no  history  which  thou  hast  not  ready  in  thy 
memory,  in  which  cosmography  will  aid  thee.  Of  the  Liberal  Arts, 
geometry,  arithmetic,  music,  I  have  given  thee  a  taste  when  thou  wast 
stil  a  child,  at  the  age  of  five  or  six  [Pantagruel  was  a  giant,  we  must 
remember];  carry  them  on;  and  know'st  thou  all  the  rules  of  astronomy? 
Don't  touch  astrology  for  divination  and  the  art  of  LuUius,  which  are 
mere  vanity.     In  the  civil  law  thou  must  know  the  five  texts  by  heai  t 

.  .  .  As  for  knowledge  of  the  works  of  Nature,  I  would  liave  thee 
devote  thyself  to  them  so  that  there  may  be  no  sea,  river,  or  spring  of 
which  thou  knowest  not  the  fishes ;  all  the  birds  of  the  air,  all  the  trees, 
forest  or  orchard,  all  the  herbs  of  the  field,  all  the  metals  hid  in  the 
bowels  of  the  earth,  all  the  precious  stones  of  the  East  and  the  South, 
let  nothing  be  unknown  to  thee. 

**  Then  turn  again  with  diligence  to  the  books  of  the  Greek  physicians, 


RABELAIS.  69 


Study  of  Scripture.    Piety. 


and  the  Arabs,  and  the  Latin,  without  despising  the  Talmudists  and 
the  Cabalists  ;  and  by  frequent  dissections  acquire  a  perfect  knowledge 
of  !he  other  world,  which  is  Man.  And  some  hours  a-day  begin  to  read 
the  Sacred  Writings,  first  in  Greek  the  New  Testament  and  Epistles  of 
the  Apostles ;  then  in  Hebrew  the  Old  Testament.  In  brief,  let  me 
see  thee  an  abyss  and  bottomless  pit  of  knowledge,  for  from  henceforth 
as  thou  growest  great  and  becomest  a  man  thou  must  part  from  this 
tranquillity  and  rest  of  study  .  .  .  And  because,  as  Solomon  sailh, 
wisdom  entereth  not  into  a  malicious  mind,  and  science  without  con- 
science is  but  the  ruin  of  the  soul,  thou  shouldst  serve,  love,  and  fear 
God,  and  in  Him  centre  all  thy  thoughts,  all  thy  hope ;  and  by  faith 
rooted  in  charity  be  joined  to  Him,  so  as  never  to  be  separated  from 
Him  by  sin." 

The  influence  of  Rabelais  on  Montaigne,  Locke,  and  Rousseau  has 
been  well  traced  by  Dr.  F.  A.  Arnstadt.  {Fran(ois  Rabelais,  Leipzig, 
Earth,  ^872.) 


VI. 

MONTAIGNE. 

(1533-1592-) 

§  I.  The  learned  ideal  established  by  the  Renascence  was 
accepted  by  Rabelais,  though  he  made  some  suggestions 
about  Realien*  that  seem  to  us  much  in  advance  of  it. 
When  he  quotes  the  saying  "  Magis  magnos  clericos  non 
sunt  magis  magnos  sapientes"  ("the  greatest  clerks  are  not  the 
greatest  sages  "),  this  singular  piece  of  Latinity  is  appro- 
priately put  into  the  mouth  of  a  monk,  who  represents 
everything  the  Renascence  scholars  despised.  In  Montaigne 
we  strike  into  a  new  vein  of  thought,  and  we  find  that  what 
the  monk  alleges  in  defence  of  his  ignorance  the  cultured 
gentleman  adopts  as  the  expression  of  an  important  truth. 

§  2.  We  ordinary  people  see  truths  indeed,  but  we  see 
them  indistinctly,  and  are  not  completely  guided  by  them. 

*  I  am  sorry  to  use  a  German  word,  but  educational  matters  have 
been  so  little  considered  among  us  that  we  have  no  English  vocabulary 
for  them.  The  want  of  a  word  for  Realien  was  felt  over  200  years  ago. 
"  Repositories  for  visibles  shall  be  prepared  by  which  from  beholding 
the  things  gentlewomen  may  learn  the  names,  natures,  values,  and  use 
of  herbs,  shrubs,  trees,  mineral-juices  {sic),  metals,  and  stones."  (Essay 
to  Revive  the  Antient  Education  of  Gentlewomen.     London,  1672.) 


MONTAIGNE.  7 1 


Writers  and  doers.     Montaigne  v.  Renascence. 

It  is  reserved  for  men  of  genius  to  see  truths,  some  truths 
that  is,  often  a  very  few,  with  intense  clearness.  Some  of 
♦^hece  men  have  no  great  talent  for  speech  or  writing,  and  they 
try  to  express  the  truths  they  see,  not  so  much  by  books  as  by 
action.  Such  men  in  education  were  Comenius,  Pestalozzi, 
aud  Froebel.  But  sometimes  the  man  of  genius  has  a  great 
power  over  language,  and  then  he  finds  for  the  truths  he 
has  seen,  fitting  expression,  which  becomes  almost  as 
lasting  as  the  truths  themselves.  Such  men  were  Montaigne 
and  Rousseau.  If  the  historian  of  education  is  asked 
"What  did  Montaigne  do?"  he  will  answer  "Nothing." 
"What  did  Froebel  say?"  "He  said  a  great  deal,  but  very 
few  people  can  read  him  and  still  fewer  understand  him." 
Both,  however,  are  and  must  remain  forces  in  education. 
Mc  ntaigne  has  given  to  some  truths  imperishable  form  in  his 
Essays,  and  Froebel's  ideas  come  home  to  all  the  world  in 
tlie  Kindergarten. 

§  3.  The  ideal  set  up  by  the  Renascence  attached  the 
highest  importance  to  learning.  Montaigne  maintained  that 
the  resulting  training  even  at  its  best  was  not  suited  to  a 
gentleman  or  man  of  action.  Virtue,  wisdom,  and  intel- 
lectual activity  should  be  thought  of  before  learning 
Education  should  be  first  and  foremost  the  development  and 
exercise  of  faculties.  And  even  if  the  acquirement  of 
knowledge  is  thought  of,  Montaigne  maintains  that  the 
pedants  do  not  understand  the  first  conditions  of  knowledge 
and  give  a  semblance  not  the  true  thing. — "//  ne  faut  pas 
attacker  le  savoir  d,  Fame,  il  faut  Vincorporer. — Knowledge 
cannot  be  fastened  on  to  the  mind ;  it  must  become  part 
and  parcel  of  the  mind  itself."* 

*  See  the  very  interesting   Essay  on  Montaigne  by  Dee.n  R.   W. 
Church. 


72  MONTAIGNE. 


Character  before  knowledge.    True  knowledge. 

Here  then  we  have  two  separate  counts  against  the 
Renascence  education : 

ist — Knowledge  is  not  the  main  thing. 

2nd. — True  knowledge  is  something  very  different  from 
knowing  by  heart. 

§  4.  It  is  a  pity  Montaigne's  utterances  about  education 
are  to  be  found  in  English  only  in  the  complete  translation 
ot  his  essays.  Seeing  that  a  good  many  millions  of  people 
read  English,  and  are  most  of  them  concerned  in  education, 
one  may  hope  that  some  day  the  sayings  of  the  shrewd  old 
Frenchman  may  be  offered  them  in  a  convenient  form. 

§  5.  Here  are  some  of  them:  "The  evil  comes  of  the 
foolish  way  in  which  our  [instructors]  set  to  work ;  and  on  the 
plan  on  which  we  are  taught  no  wonder  if  neither  scholars 
nor  masters  become  more  able,  whatever  they  may  do  in 
becoming  more  learned.  In  truth  the  trouble  and  expense 
of  our  fathers  are  directed  only  to  furnish  our  heads  with 
knowledge  :  not  a  word  of  judgment  or  virtue.  Cry  out  to 
our  people  about  a  passer-by,  'There's  a  learned  man!' and 
about  another  'There's  a  good  man  !'  they  will  be  all  agog 
after  the  learned  man,  and  will  not  look  at  the  good  man. 
One  might  fairly  raise  a  third  cry :  *  There's  a  set  of  num- 
skulls !'  We  are  ready  enough  to  ask  '  Does  he  know 
Greek  or  know  Latin?  Does  he  write  verse  or  write 
prose?'  But  whether  he  has  become  wiser  or  better 
should  be  the  first  question,  and  that  is  always  the  last 
We  ought  to  find  out,  not  who  knows  most  but  who  knows 
best"  (I,  chap.  24,  Du  Fedantisme,  page  or  two  beyond 
Odi  homines.) 

§  6.  The  true  educators,  according  to  Montaigne,  were 
the  Spartans,  who  despised  literature,  and  cared  only  for 
character  and  action.     At  Athens  they  thought  about  words, 


MONTAIGNE.  73 


Athens  and  Sparta.    Wisdom  before  knowledge. 

at  Sparta  about  things.  At  Athens  boys  learnt  to  speak 
well,  at  Sparta  to  do  well :  at  Athens  to  escape  from  sophis- 
tical arguments,  and  to  face  all  attempts  to  deceive  them  ; 
at  Sparta  to  escape  from  the  allurements  of  pleasure,  and 
to  face  the  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous  fortune,  even 
death  itself  In  the  one  system  there  was  constant  exercise 
of  the  tongue,  in  the  other  of  the  soul.  "  So  it  is  not  strange 
that  when  Antipater  demanded  of  the  Spartans  fifty  children 
as  hostages  they  replied  they  would  sooner  give  twice  as  many 
grown  men,  such  store  did  they  set  by  their  country's 
training."     {Du  Pedantisme,  ad  f ) 

§  7.  It  is  odd  to  find  a  man  of  the  fifteen  hundreds  who 
quotes  from  the  old  authors  at  every  turn,  and  yet  maintains 
that  "  we  lean  so  much  on  the  arm  of  other  people  that  we 
lose  our  own  strength."  The  thing  a  boy  should  learn  is 
not  what  the  old  authors  say,  but  "what  he  himself  ought 
to  do  when  he  becomes  a  man."  Wisdom,  not  knowledge  ! 
"  VVe  may  become  learned  from  the  learning  of  others  ;  wise 
we  can  never  be  except  by  our  own  wisdom."  (Bk.  j, 
chap.  24). 

§  8.  So  entirely  was  Montaigne  detached  from  the 
thought  of  the  Renascence  that  he  scoffs  at  his  own 
learning,  and  declares  that  true  learning  has  for  its  subject, 
not  the  past  or  the  future,  but  the  present.  "  We  are  truly 
learned  from  knowing  the  present,  not  from  knowing  the 
past  any  more  than  the  future."  And  yet  "  we  toil  only  to 
stuft  the  memory  and  leave  the  conscience  and  the  under- 
standing void.  And  like  birds  who  fly  abroad  to  forage  for 
grain  bring  it  home  in  their  beak,  without  tasting  it  themselves, 
to  feed  their  young,  so  our  pedants  go  picking  knowledge 
here  and  there  out  of  several  authors,  and  hold  it  at  their 
tongue's  end,  only  to  spit  it  out  and  distribute  it  amongst 


74  MONTAIGNE. 


Knowing,  and  knowing  by  heart. 


their  pupils."  {Du  Pedantistne.)  "  We  are  all  richer  than 
we  think,  but  they  drill  us  in  borrowing  and  begging,  and 
lead  us  to  make  more  use  of  other  people's  goods  than  of 
our  own."*  (Bk.  iij,  chap.  12,  De  la  Fhysionomie,  beg.  of 
3rd  paragraph). 

§  9.  So  far  Montaigne.  What  do  we  schoolmasters  say 
to  all  this?  If  we  would  be  quite  candid  I  think  we  must 
allow  that,  after  reading  Montaigne's  essay,  we  put  it  down 
with  the  conviction  that  in  the  main  he  was  right,  and  that 
he  had  proved  the  error  and  absurdity  of  a  vast  deal  that 
goes  on  in  the  schoolroom.  But  from  this  first  view  we 
have  had  on  reflection  to  make  several  drawbacks. 

§  10.  Montaigne,  like  Locke  and  Rousseau,  who  fol- 
lowed in  his  steps,  arranges  for  every  boy  to  have  a  tutor 
entirely  devoted  to  him.  We  may  question  whether  this 
method  of  bringing  up  children  is  desirable,  and  we  may 
assert,  without  question,  that  in  most  cases  it  is  impossible. 
It  seems  ordained  that  at  every  stage  of  life  we  should 
require  the  companionship  of  those  of  our  own  age.     If  we 


*  Perhaps  the  saying  of  Montaigne's  which  is  most  frequently  quoted 
is  the  paradox  Savoir  par  coeur  n!  est  pas  savoir :  ( "  toknow  by  heart  is 
TioX.X.oknow.''^)  But  these  words  are  often  misunderstood.  The  meaning, 
as  I  take  it,  is  this  :  When  a  thought  has  entered  into  the  mind  it 
shakes  off  the  words  by  which  it  was  conveyed  thither.  Therefore  so 
long  as  the  words  are  indispensable  the  thought  is  not  known.  Knowing 
and  knowing  by  heart  are  not  necessarily  opposed,  but  they  are  different 
things ;  and  as  the  mind  most  easily  runs  along  sequences  of  words  a 
knowledge  of  the  words  often  conceals  ignorance  or  neglect  of  the 
tliought.  I  once  asked  a  boy  if  he  thought  of  the  meaning  when  he 
repeated  Latin  poetry  and  I  got  the  instructive  answer  :  "Sometimes, 
when  1  am  not  sure  of  the  words."  But  there  are  cases  in  which  we 
naturally  connect  a  particular  form  of  words  with  thoughts  that  have 
become  part  of  our  minds.     We  then  know,  and  know  by  heart  also. 


MONTAIGNE.  75 


Learning  necessary  as  employment. 

take  two  beings  as  little  alike  as  a  man  and  a  child  and 
force  them  to  be  each  other's  companions,  so  great  is  the 
difference  in  their  thoughts  and  interests  that  they  will  fall 
into  inevitable  boredom  and  restraint  So  we  see  that  this 
plan,  even  in  the  few  cases  in  which  it  would  be  possible, 
would  not  be  desirable  ;  and  for  the  great  majority  of  boys 
it  would  be  out  of  the  question.  We  must  then  arrange 
for  the  young  to  be  taught,  not  as  individuals,  but  in  classes, 
and  this  greatly  changes  the  conditions  of  the  problem. 
One  of  the  first  conditions  is  this,  that  we  have  to  employ 
each  class  regularly  and  uniformly  for  some  hours  every 
day.  Schoolmasters  know  what  their  non-scholastic  mentors 
forget :  we  can  make  a  class  learn,  but,  broadly  speaking, 
we  cannot  make  a  class  think,  still  less  can  we  make  it 
judge.  As  a  great  deal  of  occupation  has  to  be  provided, 
we  are  therefore  forced  to  make  our  pupils  learn.  What- 
ever may  be  the  value  of  the  learning  in  itself  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  as  employment 

§  II.  No  doubt  it  will  make  a  vast  difference  whether 
we  consider  the  learning  mainly  as  employment,  as  a 
means  of  taking  up  time  and  preventing  "  sauntering,"  as 
Locke  boldly  calls  it,  or  whether  we  are  chiefly  anxious  to 
secure  some  special  results.  The  knowledge  of  the  Latin 
and  Greek  languages  and  the  Latin  and  Greek  authors  was 
a  result  so  highly  prized  by  the  Renascence  scholars  that 
they  insisted  on  a  prodigious  quantity  of  learning,  not  as 
employment,  but  simply  as  the  means  of  acquiring  this 
knowledge.  As  the  knowledge  got  to  be  less  esteemed  the 
pressure  was  by  degrees  relaxed.  In  our  public  schools  fifty 
or  sixty  years  ago  the  learning  was  to  some  extent  retained  as 
employment,  but  there  certainly  was  no  pressure,  and  the. 
majority  of  the  boys  never  learnt  the  ancient  languages. 


^6  MONTAIGNE. 

Montaigne  and  our  Public  Schools. 

So  the  masters  of  that  time  had  given  up  the  Renascence 
enthusiasm  for  the  classics,  and  on  the  negative  side  of 
his  teaching  had  come  to  an  agreement  writh  Montaigne. 
Any  one  inclined  to  sarcasm  might  say  that  on  the  positive 
side  they  were  still  totally  opposed  to  him,  for  he  thought 
virtue  and  judgment  were  the  main  things  to  be  cared  for, 
and  f/iey  did  not  care  for  these  things  at  all.  But  this  is 
not  a  fair  statement.  The  one  thing  gained,  or  supposed  to 
to  be  gained,  in  the  public  schools  was  the  art  of  living,  and 
this  art,  though  it  does  not  demand  heroic  virtue,  requires  at 
least  prudence  and  self-control.  Montaigne's  system  was  a 
revolt  against  the  bookishness  of  the  Renascence.  "  In  our 
studies,"  says  he,  "  whatever  presents  itself  before  us  is  book 
enough;  a  roguish  trick  of  a  page,  a  blunder  of  a 
servant,  a  jest  at  table,  are  so  many  new  subjects."  So  the 
education  out  of  school  was  in  his  eyes  of  m.ore  value  than 
the  education  in  school.  And  this  was  acknowledged  also 
in  our  public  schools  :  "  It  is  not  the  Latin  and  Greek  they 
learn  or  don't  learn  that  we  consider  so  important,"  the 
masters  used  to  say,  "  but  it  is  the  tone  of  the  school  and 
the  discipline  of  the  games."  But  of  late  years  this 
virtual  agreement  with  Montaigne  has  been  broken  up. 
School  work  is  no  longer  mere  employment,  but  it  is  done 
under  pressure,  and  with  penalties  if  the  tale  of  brick 
turned  out  does  not  pass  the  inspector. 

§  12.  What  has  produced  this  great  change?  It  is  due 
m-ainly  to  two  causes : 

I.  The  pressure  put  on  the  young  to  attain  classical 
knowledge  was  relaxed  when  it  was  thought  that  they  could 
get  through  life  very  well  without  this  knowledge.  But 
in  these  days  new  knowledge  has  awakened  a  new  enthusiasm. 
The  knowledge  of  science  promises  such  great  advantages 


MONTAIGNE.  "Jf 


Pressure  from  Science  and  Examinations. 

that  the  latest  reformers,  headed  by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer, 
seem  to  make  the  well-being  of  the  grown  person  depend 
mainly  on  the  amount  of  sclomific  knowledge  he  stored  uj} 
in  his  youth.  This  is  the  first  cause  of  educational  pressure. 
§  13  2.  The  second  and  more  urgent  cause  is  the 
rap'd  development  of  our  system  of  examinations.  Every- 
body's educational  status  is  now  settled  by  the  examiner,  a 
potentate  whose  influence  has  brought  back  in  a  very 
malignant  form  all  the  evils  of  which  Montaigne  complains. 
Do  what  we  will,  the  faculty  chiefly  exercised  in  preparing 
for  ordinary  examinations  is  the  "carrying  memory."  So 
the  acquisition  of  knowledge — mere  memory  or  examination 
knowledge — has  again  come  to  be  regarded  as  the  one  thing 
needful  in  education,  and  there  is  great  danger  of  everything 
else  being  neglected  for  it.  Of  the  fourfold  results  of 
education — virtue,  wisdom,  good  manners,  learning — the 
last  alone  can  be  fairly  tested  in  examinations ;  and  as  the 
schoolmaster's  very  bread  depends  nowadays  first  on  his 
getting  through  examinations  himself  and  then  on-  getting 
his  pupils  through,  he  would  be  more  than  human,  if  with 
Locke  he  thought  of  learning  "last  and  least."  A  great 
change  has  come  over  our  public  schools.  The  amount  of 
work  required  from  the  boys  is  far  greater  than  it  used  to  be 
and  masters  again  measure  their  success  by  the  amount  of 
knowledge  the  average  boy  takes  away  with  him.  It  seems 
to  me  high  time  that  another  Montaigne  arose  to  protest 
that  a  man's  intellectual  life  does  not  consist  in  the  number 
of  things  he  remembers,  and  that  his  true  life  is  not  his 
intellectual  life  only,  but  embraces  his  power  of  will  and 
action  and  his  love  of  what  is  noble  and  right.  "  Wisdom 
cried  of  old,  I  am  the  mother  of  fair  Love  and  Fear  and 
Knowledge  and  holy  Hope "  {Ecdesiasticus).  In  these 
8 


78  MONTAIGNE. 


Danger  from  knowledge. 


days  of  science  and  examinations  does  there  not  seem  some 
danger  lest  knowledge  should  prove  the  sole  surviver?  May 
not  Knowledge,  like  another  Cain,  raise  its  hand  against  its 
brethren  " fair  Love  and  Fear  and  holy  Hope?"  This  is 
perhaps  the  great  danger  of  our  time,  a  danger  especially 
felt  in  education.  Every  school  parades  its  scholarships  at 
the  i)ublic  schools  or  at  the  universities,  or  its  passes  in  the 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  Locals,  or  its  percentage  at  the  last 
Inspection,  and  asks  to  be  judged  by  these.  And  yet  these 
are  not  the  one  thing  or  indeed  the  chief  thing  needful : 
and  it  will  be  the  ruin  of  true  education  if,  as  Mark  Pattison 
said,  the  master's  attention  is  concentrated  on  the  least 
important  part  of  his  duty.* 


•  Lord  Armstrong  has  perhaps  never  read  Montaigne's  Essay  on 
Pedantry;  certainly,  he  has  not  borrowed  from  it ;  and  yet  much  that 
he  says  in  discussing  "  The  Cry  for  Useless  Knowledge  "  (Nineteenth 
Century  Magazine,  November,  1888),  is  just  what  Montaigne  said  more 
than  three  centuries  ago.  "  The  aphorism  that  knowledge  is  power  is 
so  constantly  used  by  educational  enthusiasts  that  it  may  almost  be  re- 
garded as  the  motto  of  the  party.  But  the  first  essential  of  a  motto 
is  that  it  be  true,  and  it  is  certainly  not  true  that  knowledge  is  the 
same  as  power,  seeing  that  it  is  only  an  aid  to  power.  The  power  of  a 
surgeon  to  amputate  a  limb  no  more  lies  in  his  knowledge  than  in  his 
knife.  In  '^act,  the  knife  has  the  better  claim  to  potency  of  the  two, 
for  a  man  may  hack  off  a  limb  with  his  knife  alone,  but  not  with  his 
knowledge  alone.  Knowledge  is  not  even  an  aid  to  power  in  all  cases, 
seeing  that  useless  knowledge,  which  is  no  uncommon  article  in  oui 
popular  schools,  has  no  relation  to  power.  The  true  source  of  pi.  ^er 
is  the  originative  action  of  the  mind  which  we  see  exhibited  in  the  daily 
incidents  of  life,  as  well  as  in  matters  of  great  importance.  .     .     . 

A  man's  success  in  life  depends  incomparably  mor°  upon  his  capacities 
for  useful  action  than  upon  his  acquirements  in  knowledge,  and  the 
education  of  the  young  should  therefore  be  directed  to  the  development 
of  faculties  and  valuable  qualities  rather  than  to  the  acquisition  of  know- 


MONTAIGNE.  79 


Montaigne  and  Lord  Armstrong. 

ledge.  .  .  .  Men  of  capacity  and  possessing  qualities  for  useful 
action  are  at  a  premium  all  overthe  world,  while  men  of  mere  education 
are  at  a  deplorable  discount. "  (p.  664). 

"  There  is  a  great  tendency  in  the  scholastic  world  to  underrate  the 
value  and  potency  of  self-education,  which  commences  on  leaving  school 
and  endures  all  through  life."  (p.  667). 

"  I  deprecate  plunging  into  doubtful  and  costly  schemes  of  instruction, 
led  on  by  the  ignis  fatuus  that  'knowledge  is  a  power.'  For  where 
natural  capacity  is  wasted  in  attaining  knowledge,  it  would  be  truer  to 
say  that  knowledge  is  weakness."  (p.  668). 


VII. 

ASCHAM. 

(151S-1568.) 


§  I.  Masters  and  scholars  who  sigh  over  what  seem  to 
them  the  intricacies  and  obscurities  of  modern  grammars 
may  find  some  consolation  in  thinking  that,  after  all,  matters 
might  have  been  worse,  and  that  our  fate  is  enviable  indeed 
compared  with  that  of  the  students  of  Latin  400  years  ago. 
Did  the  reader  ever  open  the  Dodrinah  of  Alexandei 
de  Villa  Dei,  which  was  the  grammar  in  general  use  from 
the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  to  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 
century?  (z/.  Appendix,  p.  532).  If  so,  he  is  aware  how 
great  a  step  towards  simplicity  was  made  by  our  grammatical 
reformers,  Lily,  Colet,  and  Erasmus.  Indeed,  those  whom 
we  now  regard  as  the  forgers  of  our  chains  were,  in  their 
own  opinion  and  that  of  their  contemporaries,  the  champions 
of  freedom  (Appendix,  p.  533). 

§  2.  I  have  given  elsewhere  (Appendix,  p.  533)  a  remark- 
able passage  from  Colet,  in  which  he  recommends  the 
leaving  of  rules,  and  the  study  of  examples  in  good  Latin 
authors.  Wolsey  also,  in  his  directions  to  the  masters  of 
Ipswich  School  (dated  1528),  proposes  that  the  boys  should 
be  exercised  in  the  eight  parts  of  speech  in  the  first  form, 


ASCHAM.  81 

Wolsey  on  teaching. 

and  should  begin  to  speak  Latin  and  translate  from  English 
into  Latin  in  the  second.  If  the  masters  think  fit,  they  may 
also  let  the  pupils  read  Lily's  Carmen  Monitorium,  or  ('ato's 
Distichs.  From  the  third  upwards  a  regular  course  ot 
classical  authors  was  to  be  read,  and  Lily's  rules  were  to  be 
introduced  by  degrees.  "  Although  I  confess  such  things 
are  necessary,"  writes  Wolsey,  "  yet,  as  far  as  possible,  we 
could  wish  them  so  appointed  as  not  to  occupy  the  more 
valuable  part  of  the  day."  Only  in  the  sixth  form,  the 
highest  but  two,  Lily's  syntax  was  to  be  begun.  In  these 
schools  the  boys'  time  was  wholly  taken  up  with  Latin,  and 
the  speaking  of  Latin  was  enforced  even  in  play  hours,  so 
we  see  that  anomalies  in  the  accidence  as  taught  in  the  As 
in  prcRsenti  were  not  given  till  the  boys  had  been  some  time 
using  the  language ;  and  the  syntax  was  kept  till  they  had 
a  good  practical  knowledge  of  the  usages  to  which  the  rules 
referred.* 

§  3.  But  although  there  was  a  great  stir  in  education 
throughout  this  century,  and  several  English  books  were 
published  about  it,  we  come  to  1570  before  we  find  any- 
thing that  has  lived  till  now.  We  then  have  Roger  Ascharn's 
Schole master,  a  posthumous  work  brought  out  by  Ascham's 
widow,  and  republished  in  157 1  and  1589.     The  book  was 

*  In  another  matter,  also,  we  find  that  the  masters  of  these  schools 
subsequently  departed  widely  from  the  intention  of  the  great  men  who 
fostered  the  revival  of  learning.  Wolsey  writes:  "  Imprimis  hoc  unum 
admonendum  censuerimus,  ut  neque  plagis  severioribus  neque  vultuosis 
minis,  aut  ulla  tyrannidis  specie,  tenera  pubes  afficiatur :  hac  enim 
injuria  ingenii  alacritas  aut  extingui  aut  magna  ex  parte  obtundi  solet." 
Again  he  says  :  "  In  ipsis  s'udiis  sic  voluptas  est  intermiscenda  ut  puer 
ludum  potius  discendi  quam  laborem  existimet. "  He  adds :  "  Cavendum 
erit  ne  immodica  contentione  ingenia  discentium  obruantur  aut  lectione 
ptulonga  defatigentur  ;  utraque  enim  juxta  offenditur." 


83  ASCHAM. 

History  of  Methods  useful. 


then  lost  sight  of,  but  reappeared,  with  James  Upton  as 
editor,  in  17  ii,*  and  has  been  regarded  as  an  educational 
classic  ever  since.  Dr.  Johnson  says  "it  contains  peihaps 
the  best  advice  that  was  ever  given  for  the  study  of 
languages,"  and  Professor  J.  E.  B.  Mayor,  who  on  this 
point  is  a  higher  authority  than  Dr.  Johnson,  declares  that 
"  this  book  sets  forth  the  only  sound  method  of  acquiring  a 
dead  language." 

§  4.  With  all  their  contempt  for  theory,  English  school- 
masters might  have  been  expected  to  take  an  interest  in  one 
part  of  the  history  of  education,  viz.,  the  history  of  methods, 
There  is  a  true  saying  attributed  by  Marcel  to  Talleyrand, 
*'  Les  Methodes  sont  les  viattres  des  maitres — Method  is  the 
master's  master."  The  history  of  education  shows  us  that 
every  subject  of  instruction  has  been  taught  in  various 
ways,  and  further,  that  the  contest  of  methods  has  not 
uniformly  ended  in  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  Methods  then 
might  often  teach  the  teachers,  if  the  teachers  caved  to  be 
taught ;  but  till  within  the  last  half  century  or  so  an  unin- 
telligent traditional  routine  has  sufficed  for  them.  There 
has  no  doubt  been  a  great  change  since  men  now  old  were 
at  school,  but  in  those  days  the  main  strength  of  the 
teaching  was  given  to  Latin,  and  the  masters  knew  of  no 
better  method  of  starting  boys  in  this  language  than 
making  them  learn  by  heart  Lily's,  or  as  it  was  then  called, 
the  Eton  Latin  Grammar.  If  reason  had  had  anything  to 
do  with  teaching,  this  book  would  have  been  demolished 
by  Richard  Johnson's  Grammatical  Commentaries  published 


*  Professor  Arber  is  one  of  the  very  few  editors  who  give  accurate 
ond  sufficient  bibliographical  information  about  the  books  they  edit 
All  students  of  our  old  literature  are  under  deep  obligations  to  him. 


AscriAM.  83 

Our  three  celebrities. 


in  1706;  but  worthless  as  Johnson  proved  it  to  be,  the 
Grammar  was  for  another  150  years  treated  by  English 
schoolmasters  as  the  only  introduction  to  the  Latin  tongue. 
The  books  that  have  recently  been  published  show  a 
tendency  to  revert  to  methods  set  forth  in  Elizabeth's  reign 
in  Ascham's  Scholetnaster  (1570)  and  William  Kempe's 
Education  of  Children  (1588),  but  the  innovators  have  not 
as  a  rule  been  drawn  to  these  methods  by  historical 
inquiry. 

§  5.  There  seem  to  be  only  three  English  writers  on 
education  who  have  caught  the  ear  of  other  nations,  and 
these  are  Ascham,  Locke,  and  Herbert  Spencer.  Of  a 
contemporary  we  do  well  to  speak  with  the  same  reserve  as 
of  "  present  company,"  but  of  the  other  two  we  may  say 
that  the  choice  has  been  somewhat  capricious.  Locke's 
Thoughts  perhaps  deserves  the  reputation  and  influence  it 
has  always  had,  but  in  it  he  hardly  does  himself  justice  as  a 
philosopher  of  the  mind;  and  much  of  the  advice  which  has 
been  considered  his  exclusively,  is  to  be  found  in  his 
English  predecessors  whose  very  names  are  unknown  except 
to  the  educational  antiquarian.  Ascham  wrote  a  few  pages 
on  method  Which  entitle  him  to  mention  in  an  account  of 
methods  of  language-learning.  He  also  wrote  a  great  many 
pages  about  things  in  general  which  would  have  shared  the 
fate  of  many  more  valuable  but  long  forgotten  books  had 
he  not  had  one  peculiarity  in  which  the  other  writers  were 
wanting,  that  indescribable  something  which  Matthew  Arnold 
calls  "charm." 

§  6.  Ascham  has  been  very  fortunate  in  his  editors,  Pro- 
fessor Arber  and  Professor  Mayor,  and  the  last  editions* 

*  Mayor's  is  beautifully  printed  and  costs  \s.  (London,  Bell  and 
Sons.) 


84  ASCHAM. 

A.'s  method  for  Latin :  first  stage. 

give  everyone  an  opportunity  of  reading  the  Scholemaster, 
I  shall  therefore  speak  of  nothing  but  the  method. 

§  7.  Latin  is  to  be  taught  as  follows  : — -First,  let  the 
child  learn  the  eight  parts  of  speech,  and  then  the  right 
joining  together  of  substantives  with  adjectives,  the  noun 
with  the  verb,  the  relative  with  the  antecedent.  After  the 
concords  are  learned,  let  the  master  take  Sturm's  selection 
of  Cicero's  Epistles,  and  read  them  after  this  manner  •. 
"  first,  let  him  teach  the  child,  cheerfully  and  plainly,  the 
cause  and  matter  of  the  letter ;  then,  let  him  construe  it 
into  English  so  oft  as  the  child  may  easily  carry  away  the 
understanding  of  it;  lastly,  parse  it  over  perfectly.  This 
done,  then  let  the  child  by  and  by  both  construe  and  parse 
it  over  again  ;  so  that  it  may  appear  that  the  child  doubteth 
in  nothing  that  his  master  has  taught  him  before.  After 
this,  the  child  must  take  a  paper  book,  and,  sitting  in  some 
place  where  no  man  shall  prompt  him,  by  himself  let  him 
translate  into  English  his  former  lesson.  Then  showing  it 
to  his  master,  let  the  master  take  from  him  his  Latin  book, 
and  pausing  an  hour  at  the  least,  then  let  the  child  translate 
his  own  English  into  Latin  again  in  another  paper  book. 
When  the  child  bringeth  it  turned  into  Latin,  the  master  must 
compare  it  with  TuUy's  book,  and  lay  them  both  together, 
and  where  the  child  doth  well,  praise  him,"  where  amiss  point 
out  why  Tully's  use  is  better.  Thus  the  child  will  easily 
acquire  a  knowledge  of  grammar,  "and  also  the  ground  oi 
almost  all  the  rules  that  are  so  busily  taught  by  the  master,  and 
sohardlylearnedby  the  scholar  in  all  common  schools.  .  .  . 
We  do  not  contemn  rules,  but  we  gladly  teach  rules;  and 
teach  them  more  plainly,  sensibly,  and  orderly,  than  they  be 
commonly  taught  in  common  schools.  For  when  the  master 
shall  compare  Tully's  book  with  the  scholar's  translation, 


ASCHAM.  85 

Second  stage.    The  six  points. 

let  the  master  at  the  first  lead  and  teach  the  scholar  to  join 
the  rules  of  his  grammar  book  with  the  examples  of  his 
present  lesson,  until  the  scholar  by  himself  be  able  to  fetch 
out  of  his  grammar  every  rule  for  every  example ;  and  let 
the  grammar  book  be  ever  in  the  scholar's  hand,  and  also 
used  by  him  as  a  dictionary  for  every  present  use.  This  is 
a  Uvely  and  perfect  way  of  teaching  of  rules ;  where  the 
common  way  used  in  common  schools  to  read  the  grammar 
alone  by  itself  is  tedious  for  the  master,  hard  for  the  scholar, 
cold  and  uncomfortable  for  them  both."  And  elsewhere 
Ascham  says :  "  Yea,  I  do  wish  that  all  rules  for  young 
scholars  were  shorter  than  they  be.  For,  without  doubt, 
grajtimatica  itself  is  sooner  and  surer  learned  by  examples 
of  good  authors  than  by  the  naked  rules  of  grammarians." 

§  8.  "As  you  perceive  your  scholar  to  go  better  on  away, 
first,  with  understanding  his  lesson  more  quickly,  with 
parsing  more  readily,  with  translating  more  speedily  and 
perfectly  than  he  was  wont ;  after,  give  him  longer  lessons 
to  translate,  and,  withal,  begin  to  teach  him,  both  in  nouns 
and  verbs,  what  is  proprium  and  what  is  trans/atum,  what 
synonymum,  what  diversum,  which  be  contraria,  and  which 
be  most  notable  phrases,  in  all  his  lectures,  as — 

Proprium      .     Rex  sepultus  est  magnifice. 

Translatum  .     Cum  illo  principe,   sepulta  est   et  gloria  at  salus 

reipublicse. 
Synonyma    .     Ensis,  gladius  :  laudare,  praedicare. 
Diversa    .     .     Diligere,  amare :    calere,   exardescere :    inimicus, 

hostis. 
Contraria .     .     Acerbum  et  luctuosum  helium,  dulcis  et  Iseta  pax. 
Phrases     .     .     Dare  verba,  adjicere  obcdientiam." 

Every  lesson  is  to  be  thus  carefully  analysed,  and  entered 
under  these  headings  in  a  third  MS.  book. 


86  ASCHAM. 

Value  of  double  translating  and  writing. 

§  9.  Here  Ascham  leaves  his  method,  and  returns  to  it 
only  at  the  beginning  of  Book  II.  He  there  supposes  the 
first  stage  to  be  finished  and  "  your  scholar  to  have  come  in- 
deed, first  to  a  ready  perfectness  in  translating,  then  to  a 
ripe  and  skilful  choice  in  marking  out  his  six  points."  He  now 
recommends  a  course  of  Cicero,  Terence,  Caesar,  and  Livy 
which  is  to  be  read  "  a  good  deal  at  every  lecture."  And 
the  master  is  to  give  passages  "  put  into  plain  naturaj. 
English."  These  the  scholar  shall  "  not  know  where  to 
find  "  till  he  shall  have  tried  his  hand  at  putting  them  into 
Latin;  then  the  master  shall  "bring  forth  the  place  in  Tully." 

§  10.  In  the  Second  Book  of  the  Scholemaster^ 
Ascham  discusses  the  various  branches  of  the  study  then 
common,  viz.  :  i.  Translatio  linguarum ;  2.  Paraphrasis ; 
3.  Metaphrasis ;  4.  Epitome ;  5.  Imitatio  ;  6.  Declamatio. 
He  does  not  lay  much  stress  on  any  of  these,  except 
translatio  and  imitatio.  Of  the  last  he  says :  "All languages, 
both  learned  and  mother-tongue,  be  gotten,  and  gotten  only, 
by  imitation.  For,  as  ye  use  to  hear,  so  ye  use  to  speak ;  if 
ye  hear  no  other,  ye  speak  not  yourself;  and  whom  ye  only 
hear,  of  them  ye  only  learn."  But  translation  was  his  great 
instrument  for  all  kinds  of  learning.  "  The  translation,"  he 
says,  "  is  the  most  common  and  most  commendable  of  all 
other  exercises  for  youth ;  most  common,  for  all  your  con- 
structions in  grammar  schools  be  nothing  else  but  translations, 
but  because  they  be  not  double  translations  (as  I  do  require) 
they  bring  forth  but  simple  and  single  commodity :  and 
because  also  they  lack  the  daily  use  of  writing,  which  is  the 
only  thing  that  breedeth  deep  root,  both  in  the  wit  for  good 
understanding  and  in  the  memory  for  sure  keeping  of  all 
that  is  learned  ;  most  commendable  also,  and  that  by  the 
judgment  of  all  authors  which  entreat  of  these  exercises." 


ASCHAM.  87 

Study  of  a  model  book. 

§  II.  After  quoting  Pliny,*  he  says:  "You  perceive 
how  Pliny  teacheth  that  by  this  exercise  of  double  trans- 
lating is  learned  easily,  sensibly,  by  little  and  little,  not 
only  all  the  hard  congruities  of  grammar,  the  choice  of 
ablest  words,  the  right  pronouncing  of  words  and  sentences, 
comeliness  of  figures,  and  forms  fit  for  every  matter  and 
proper  for  every  tongue  :  but,  that  which  is  greater  also,  in 
marking  daily  and  following  diligently  thus  the  footsteps  of 
the  best  authors,  like  invention  of  arguments,  like  order  in 
disposition,  like  utterance  in  elocution,  is  easily  gathered 
up ;  and  hereby  your  scholar  shall  be  brought  not  only  to 
like  eloquence,  but  also  to  all  true  understanding  and  right- 
ful judgment,  both  for  writing  and  speaking." 

Again  he  says  :  *'  For  speedy  attaining,  I  durst  venture  a 
good  wager  if  a  scholar  in  whom  is  aptness,  love,  diligence, 
and  constancy,  would  but  translate  after  this  sort  some  little 
book  in  Tuliy  (as  De  Senedute,  with  two  Epistles,  the  first 
'Ad  Quintum  Fratrem,'  the  other  'Ad  Lentulum'),  that 
scholar,  I  say,  should  come  to  a  better  knowledge  in  the 
Latin  tongue  than  the  most  part  do  that  spend  from  five  to 
six  yeais  in  tossing  all  the  rules  of  grammar  in  common 
schools."  After  quoting  the  instance  of  Dion  Prussaeus, 
who  came  to  great  learning  and  utterance  by  reading  and 
following  only  two  books,  the  Fhcedo,  and  Demosthenes  de 


•  "  Utile  imprimis  ut  multi  prsecipiunt,  vel  ex  Graero  in  Latinum  vel 
it  Latino  veriere  in  Grsecum ;  quo  genere  exercitationis  propnetas 
iplendorque  verborum,  copia  figurarum,  vis  explicandi,  prseterea  imita- 
tione  optimorum  similia  inveniendi  facultas  paratur :  simul  quae 
legentem  fefellissent  transferentem  fugere  non  possunt.  Intelligentia 
ex  hoc  et  judicium  acquiritur." — Epp.  vii.  9,  §  2.  So  the  passage  stands 
in  Pliny,  Ascham  quotes  "et  ex  Graeco  in  Latinum  «/ex  Latino  vertere 
in  Graccum,"  with  otlier  variations. 


88  ASCHAM. 

Q.  Elizabeth.    "  A  dozen  times  at  the  least* 


Falsa  Legatione,  he  goes  on :  "  And  a  better  and  nearer 
example  herein  may  be  our  most  noble  Queen  Elizabeth, 
who  never  took  )et  Greek  nor  Latin  grammar  in  her  hand 
after  the  first  declining  of  a  noun  and  a  verb ;  but  only  by 
this  double  translating  of  Demosthenes  and  Isocrates  daily, 
without  missing,  every  forenoon,  and  likewise  some  part  of 
Tully  every  afternoon,  for  the  space  of  a  year  or  two,  hath 
attained  to  such  a  perfect  understanding  in  both  the  tongues, 
and  to  such  a  ready  utterance  of  the  Latin,  and  that  with 
such  a  judgment,  as  there  be  few  now  in  both  Universities 
or  elsewhere  in  England  that  be  in  both  tongues  comparable 
with  Her  Majesty."  Ascham's  authority  is  indeed  not  con- 
clusive on  this  point,  as  he,  in  praising  the  Queen's  attain- 
ments, was  vaunting  his  own  success  as  a  teacher,  and, 
moreover,  if  he  flattered  her  he  could  plead  prevailing 
custom.  But  we  have,  I  believe,  abundant  evidence  that 
Elizabeth  was  an  accomplished  scholar. 

§  12.  Before  I  leave  Ascham  I  must  make  one  more 
quotation,  to  which  I  shall  more  than  once  have  occasion 
to  refer.  Speaking  of  the  plan  of  double  translation,  he 
says :  "  Ere  the  scholar  have  construed,  parsed,  twice  trans- 
lated over  by  good  advisement,  marked  out  his  six  points 
by  skilful  judgment,  he  shall  have  necessary  occasion  to 
read  over  every  lecture  a  dozen  times  at  the  least;  which 
because  he  shall  do  always  in  order,  he  shall  do  it  always 
with  pleasure.  And  pleasure  allureth  love  :  love  hath  lust 
lo  labour ;  labour  always  obtaineth  his  purpose." 

§  13-  A  good  deal  has  bean  said,  and  perhaps  something 
learnt,  about  the  teaching  of  Latin  since  the  days  of  Ascham. 
As  far  as  I  know  the  method  which  Ascham  denounced,  and 
which  most  English  schoolmasters  stuck  to  for  more  than 
iwo  centuries  longer,  has  now  been  abandoned      No  one 


ASCIIAM.         ,  89 

"  Impressionists"  and  "  Retainers." 

thinks  of  making  the  beginner  learn  by  heart  all  the  Latin 
Grammar  before  he  is  introduced  to  the  Latin  language. 
To  understand  the  machinery  of  which  an  account  is  given 
in  the  grammar,  the  learner  must  see  it  at  work,  and  must 
even  endeavour  in  a  small  way  to  work  it  himself.  So  it 
seems  pretty  well  agreed  that  the  information  given  in  the 
grammar  must  be  joined  with  some  construing  and  some 
exercises  from  the  very  first.  But  here  the  agreement  ends. 
Our  teachers,  consciously  or  in  ignorance,  follow  one  or 
more  of  a  number  of  methodizers  who  have  examined  the 
problem  of  language-learning,  such  men  as  Ascham,  Ratke, 
Comenius,  Jacotot,  Hamilton,  Robertson,  and  Prendergast. 
These  naturally  divide  themselves  into  two  parties,  which  I 
have  ventured  to  call  "  Rapid  Impressionists,"  and  "  Com- 
plete Retainers."  The  first  of  these  plunge  the  beginner 
into  the  language,  and  trust  to  the  great  mass  of  vague 
impressions  clearing  and  defining  themselves  as  he  goes 
along.  The  second  insist  on  his  learning  at  the  first  a  very 
small  portion  of  the  language,  and  mastering  and  retaining 
everything  he  learns.  It  will  be  seen  that  in  the  first  stage 
of  the  course  Ascham  is  a  "  Complete  Retainer."  He  does 
not  talk,  like  Prendergast,  of  "  mastery,"  nor,  like  Jacotot, 
does  he  require  the  learner  to  begin  every  lesson  at  the 
beginning  of  the  book :  but  he  makes  the  pupil  go  over 
each  lesson  "  a  dozen  times  at  the  least,"  before  he  may 
advance  beyond  it.  As  for  his  practice  of  double  trans- 
lation, for  the  advanced  pupil  it  is  excellent,  but  if  it  is 
required  from  the  beginner,  it  leads  to  unintelligent  memo- 
lizing.  I  think  I  shall  be  able  to  show  later  on  that  other 
methodizers  have  advanced  beyond  Ascham.    {Infra,  246  «.) 


VI I L 

MULCASTER 

(i53t(?)-i6ii.) 


§  I.  The  history  of  English  thought  on  education  has 
yet  to  be  written.  In  the  literature  of  education  the 
Germans  have  been  the  pioneers,  and  have  consequently 
settled  the  routes ;  and  when  a  track  has  once  been  estab- 
lished few  travellers  will  face  the  risk  and  trouble  ot 
leaving  it.  So  up  to  the  present  time,  writers  on  the  history' 
of  European  education  after  the  Renascence  have  occupied 
themselves  chiefly  with  men  who  lived  in  Germany,  or 
wrote  in  German.  But  the  French  are  at  length  exploring 
the  country  for  themselves  ;  and  in  time,  no  doubt,  the 
English-speaking  races  will  show  an  interest  in  the  thoughts 
and  doings  of  their  common  ancestors. 

We  know  what  toils  and  dangers  men  will  encounter  in 
getting  to  the  source  of  great  rivers ;  and  although,  as  Mr. 
VVidgery  truly  says,  "  the  study  of  origins  is  not  everybody's 
business,"*  we  yet  may  hope  that  students  will  be  found 
ready  to  give  time  and  trouble  lo  an  investigation  of  great 
interest  and  perhaps  some  utility — the  origin  of  the  school 

•  Teaching  of  Languages  in  Schools,  by  W.  H.  Widgery,  p.  0. 


MULCASTER.  9 1 


Old  books  in  English  on  education. 

course  which  now  affects  the  millions  who  have  English  for 
their  mother-tongue. 

§  2.  In  the  fifteen  hundreds  there  were  published 
several  works  on  education,  three  of  which,  Elyot's 
G(wernour,  Ascham's  Scholemaster,  and  Mulcaster's 
Positions,  have  been  recently  reprinted.*  Others,  such  as 
Edward  Coote's  Eiiglish  Schoolmaster,  and  Mulcaster's 
Elementarie,  are  pretty  sure  to  follow,  without  serious  loss, 
let  us  hope,  to  their  editors,  though  neither  Coote  nor 
Mulcaster  are  likely  to  become  as  well-known  writers  as 
Roger  Ascham. 

§  3.  Henry  Barnard,  whose  knowledge  of  our  educa- 
tional literature  no  less  than  his  labours  in  it,  makes  him 
the  greatest  living  authority,  says  that  Mulcaster's  Positions 
is  "  one  of  the  earliest,  and  still  one  of  the  best  treatises 
in  the  English  language."  {English  Pedagogy,  2nd  series, 
p.  177.)  Mulcaster  was  one  of  the  most  famous  of  English 
schoolmasters,  and  by  his  writings  he  proved  that  he  was 
tar  in  advance  of  the  schoolmasters  of  his  own  time,  and  of 
the  times  which  succeeded.  But  he  paid  the  penalty  of 
thinking  of  himself  more  highly  than  he  should  have 
thought;  and  whether  or  no  the  conjecture  is  right  that 
Shakespeare  had  him  in  his  mind  when  writing  Love's 
Labour's  Lost,  there  is  an  affectation  in  Mulcaster's  style 
which  is  very  irritating,  for  it  has  caused  even  the  mastei  of 
Edmund  Spenser  to  be  forgotten.  In  a  curious  and  interest- 
ing allegory  on  the  progress  of  language  (in  the  Eleme?itarie, 

*  Much  information  about  our  early  books,  with  quotations  from  some 
of  them,  will  be  found  in  Henry  Barnard's  English  Pedagogy,  ist  and  2nd 
series.  Some  notice  of  rare  books  is  given  in  Schools,  School-books,  and 
Schoolmasters,  by  W.  Carew  Hazlitt  (London,  Jarvis,  1S88),  but  in  this 
work  there  are  strange  omissions. 


92  MULCASTER. 


M.'s  wisdom  hidden  by  his  style. 


pp.  66,  flF.),  Mulcaster  says  that  Art  selects  the  best  age  of 
a  language  to  draw  rules  from,  such  as  the  age  of  Demos- 
thenes in  Greece  and  of  Tully  in  Rome ;  and  he  goes  on  : 
"Such  a  period  in  the  English  tongue  I  take  to  be  in  our 
days  for  both  the  pen  and  the  speech."  And  he  suggests 
that  the  English  language,  having  reached  its  zenith,  is  seen 
to  advantage,  not  in  the  writings  of  Shakespeare  or  Spenser, 
but  in  those  of  Richard  Mulcaster.  After  enumerating 
the  excellencies  of  the  language,  he  adds :  "  I  need  no 
example  in  any  of  these,  whereof  my  own  penning  is  a 
general  pattern."  Here  we  feel  tempted  to  exclaim  with 
Armado  in  Lm^is  Labour's  Lost  (Act  5,  sc.  2)  :  "I  protest 
the  schoolmaster  is  exceeding  fantastical :  too  too  vain,  too 
too  vain."  He  speaks  elsewhere  of  his  "  so  careful,  I  will 
not  say  so  curious  writing"  {Elemeniarie,  p.  253),  and  says 
very  truly:  "Even  some  of  reasonable  study  can  hardly 
understand  the  couching  of  my  sentence,  and  the  depth  of 
my  conceit  "  {ib.,  p.  235).  And  this  was  the  death-warrant 
of  his  literary  renown. 

§  4.  But  there  is  good  reason  why  Mulcaster  should 
not  be  forgotten.  When  we  read  his  books  we  find  that 
wisdom  which  we  are  importing  in  the  nineteenth  century 
was  in  a  great  measure  offered  us  by  an  English  schoolmaster 
in  the  sixteenth.  The  latest  advances  in  pedagogy  have 
established  (i)  that  the  end  and  aim  of  education  is  to 
develop  the  faculties  of  the  mind  and  body  ;  (2)  that  all 
teaching  processes  should  be  carefully  adapted  to  the 
mental  constitution  of  the  learner;  (3)  that  the  first  stage  in 
learning  is  of  immense  importance  and  requires  a  very  high 
degree  of  skill  in  the  teacher  ;  (4)  that  the  brain  of  children, 
especially  of  clever  children,  should  not  be  subjected  to 
"pressure";   (5)  that  childhood  should  not   be   spent  in 


MULCASTER.  931 


Education  and  "learning." 


learning  foreign  languages,  but  that  its  language  should  be 
the  mother-tongue,  and  its  exercises  should  include  hand- 
work, especially  drawing ;  (6)  that  girls'"  education  should  be 
cared  for  no  less  than  boys';  (7)  that  the  only  hope  of  im- 
proving our  schools  lies  in  providing  training  for  our 
teachers.  These  are  all  regarded  as  planks  in  the  platform 
of  "  the  new  education,"  and  these  were  all  advocated  by 
Mulcaster. 

§  5.  Before  I  point  this  out  in  detail  I  may  remark  how 
greatly  education  has  suffered  from  being  confounded  with 
learning.  There  are  interesting  passages  both  in  Ascham 
and  Mulcaster  which  prove  that  the  class-ideal  of  the 
"scholar  and  gentleman"  was  of  later  growth.  In  the  fifteen 
hundreds  learning  was  thought  suitable,  not  for  the  rich,  but 
for  the  clever.  Still,  learning,  and  therefore  education,  was 
not  for  the  many,  but  the  few.  Mulcaster  considers  at  some 
length  how  the  number  of  the  educated  is  to  be  kept  down 
(^Fosiiions,  chapp.  36,  37,  39),  though  even  here  he  is  in  the 
van,  and  would  have  everyone  taught  to  read  and  write 
{Positions,  chajjp.  5,  36).  But  the  true  problem  of  education 
was  not  faced  till  it  was  discovered  that  every  human  being 
was  to  be  considered  in  it.  This  was,  I  think,  first  seen  by 
Comenius. 

With  this  abatement  we  find  Mulcaster's  sixteenth-century 
notions  not  much  behind  our  nineteenth. 

§  6.  (i  &  2)  "  Why  is  it  not  good,"  he  asks,  "  to  have  every 
part  of  the  body  and  every  power  of  the  soul  to  be  fined  to 
his  best  ?"  {PP.,  p.  34*).  Elsewhere  he  says:  "The  end  of 
education  and  train  is  to  help  Nature  to  her  perfection, 


*  The  paging  is  that  of  the  reprint.     It  diflers  slightly  from  that  of 
first  edition. 
9 


94-  MULCASTER. 


I.  Development    2.  Child-study. 


which  is,  when  all  her  abilities  be  perfected  in  their  habit, 
whereunto  right  elements  be  right  great  helps.  Consideration 
and  judgment  must  wisely  mark  whereunto  Nature  is  either 
evidently  given  or  secretly  affectionate  and  must  frame  an 
education  consonant  thereto."  {EL,  p.  28). 

Michelet  has  with  justice  claimed  for  Montaigne  that  he 
drew  the  teacher's  attention  from  the  thing  to  be  learnt  to  the 
learner  :  '*  Non  Vohjet,  k  savoir,  mats  le  suj'et,  c'est  rhomme." 
{Nos  Fils,  p.  170.)  Mulcaster  has  a  claim  to  share  this 
honour  with  his  great  contemporary.  He  really  laid  the 
foundation  of  a  science  of  education.  Discussing  our 
natural  abilities,  he  says  :  "  We  have  a  perceiving  by  out- 
ward sense  to  feel,  to  hear,  to  see,  to  smell,  to  taste  all 
sensible  things ;  which  qualities  of  the  outward,  being 
received  in  by  the  common  sense  and  examined  by  fantsie, 
are  delivered  to  remembrance,  and  afterward  prove  our  great 
and  only  grounds  unto  further  knowledge."*  {EL,  p.  32.) 
Here  we  see  Mulcaster  endeavouring  to  base  education,  or 
as  he  so  well  calls  it,  "train,"  on  what  we  receive  from 
Nature.  Elsewhere  he  speaks  of  the  three  things  which  we 
"  find  peering  out  of  the  little  young  souls,"  viz  :  "  wit  to  take, 
memory  to  keep,  and  discretion  to  discern."    {PP.,  p.  27.) 


*  Mulcaster  goes  on  to  talk  about  the  brain,  &c.  Of  course  he  does 
not  anticipate  the  discoveries  of  science,  but  his  language  is  very  differ- 
ent from  what  we  should  expect  from  a  writer  in  the  pre-scientific  age, 
'.f .,  "  To  serve  the  turn  of  these  two,  both  sense  and  motion.  Nature  hath 
planted  in  our  body  a  brain,  the  prince  of  all  our  parts,  which  by 
spreading  sinews  of  all  sorts  throughout  all  our  parts  doth  work  all 
those  effects  which  either  sense  is  seen  in  or  motion  perceived  by." 
(EL,  p.  32.)  But  much  as  he  thinks  of  the  body  Mulcaster  is  no 
materialist.  •'  Last  of  all  our  soul  hath  in  it  an  imperial  prerogative  o/ 
understanding  beyond  sense,  of  judging  by  reason,  of  directing  by  both. 


MULCASTER.  95 


3.  Groundwork  by  best  workman. 

§  7.  (3)  I  have  pointed  out  that  the  false  ideal  of  the 
Renascence  led  schoolmasters  to  neglect  children. 
Mulcaster  remarks  that  the  ancients  considered  the  training 
of  children  should  date  from  the  birth;  but  he  himself 
begins  with  the  school  age.  Here  he  has  the  boldness  to 
propose  that  those  who  teach  the  beginners  should  have  the 
smallest  number  of  pupils,  and  should  receive  the  highest 
pay.  "  The  first  groundwork  would  be  laid  by  the  best 
workman,"  says  Mulcaster  {PP.,  130),   here   expressing  a 


for  duty  towards  God,  for  society  towards  men,  for  conquest  in 
affections,  for  purchase  in  knowledge,  and  such  other  things,  whereby 
it  furnisheth  out  all  manner  of  uses  in  this  our  mortal  life,  and 
bewrayeth  in  itself  a  more  excellent  being  than  to  continue  still  in  this 
roaming  pilgrimage."  (p.  33.)  The  grand  thing,  he  says,  is  to  bring 
all  these  abilities  to  perfection  "which  so  heavenly  a  benefit  is  begun 
by  education,  confirmed  by  use,  perfected  with  continuance  which 
crowneth  the  whole  work"  (p.  34.)  "Nature  makes  the  boy  toward  ; 
nurture  sees  him  forward."  (p.  35).  The  neglect  of  the  material  world 
which  has  been  for  ages  the  source  of  m.ischief  of  all  kinds  in  the 
schoolroom,  and  which  has  not  yet  entirely  passed  away,  would  have 
been  impossible  if  Mulcaster's  elementary  course  had  been  adopted. 
"  Is  the  body  made  by  Nature  nimble  to  run,  to  ride,  to  swim,  to  fence, 
to  do  anything  else  which  beareth  praise  in  that  kind  for  either  profit  or 
pleasure  ?  And  doth  not  the  Elementary  help  them  all  forward  by  pre- 
cept and  train  ?  The  hand,  the  ear,  the  eye  be  the  greatest  instruments 
whereby  the  receiving  and  delivery  of  our  learning  is  chiefly  executed, 
and  doth  not  this  Elementary  instruct  the  hand  to  write,  to  draw,  to  play ; 
the  eye  to  read  by  letters,  to  discern  by  line,  to  judge  by  both  ;  the  eai 
t:  call  for  voice  and  sound  with  proportion  for  pleasure,  with  reason  for 
wit?  Genei ally  whatsoever  gift  Nature  hath  bestowed  upon  the  body, 
to  be  brought  forth  or  bettered  by  the  mean  of  train  for  any  profitable 
use  in  our  whole  life,  doth  not  this  Elementary  both  find  it  and  foresee 
it?"  {El.,  p.  35).  "  The  hand,  the  ear,  the  eye,  be  the peaiest  inst'u- 
merits,"  said  the  Elizabethan  schoolmaster.  So  says  the  Victorian 
reformer. 


9<S  MULCASTER. 


4.  No  forcing  of  young  plants. 


truth  which,  Hke  many  truths  that  are  not  quite  convenient, 
is  seldom  denied  but  almost  systematically  ignored.* 

§  8.  (4)  In  the  Nineteenth  Century  Magazine  for  November, 
1888,  appeared  a  vigorous  protest  with  nearly  40c  signatures, 


•  I  wish  some  good  author  would  write  a  book  on  Unpopular  Truths, 
and  show  how,  on  some  subjects,  wise  men  go  on  saying  the  same  thing 
in  all  ages  and  nobody  listens  to  them.  Plato  said  "  In  every  work 
the  beginning  is  the  most  important  part,  especially  in  dealing  with 
anything  young  and  tender."  {Rep.,  bk.  ii,  377  ;  Davies  and  Vaughan, 
p.  65.)  And  the  complaints  about  "bad  grounding"  prove  our  com- 
mon neglect  of  what  Mulcaster  urged  three  centuries  ago  :  "  For  the 
Eleincntarie  because  good  scholars  will  not  abase  themselves  to  it,  it  is 
left  to  the  meanest,  and  therefore  to  the  worst.  For  that  the  first 
grounding  would  be  handled  by  the  best,  and  his  reward  would  be 
greatest,  because  both  his  pains  and  his  judgment  should  be  with  the 
greatest.  And  it  would  easily  allure  sufficient  men  to  come  down  so 
low,  if  they  might  perceive  that  reward  would  rise  up.  No  man  of 
judgment  will  contrary  this  point,  neither  can  any  ignorant  be  blamed 
for  the  contrary :  the  one  seeth  the  thing  to  be  but  low  in  order,  the 
other  knoweth  the  ground  to  be  great  in  laying,  not  only  for  the  matter 
which  the  child  doth  learn  :  which  is  very  small  in  show  though  great 
for  process ;  but  also  for  the  manner  of  handling  his  wit,  to  hearten 
him  for  afterward,  which  is  of  great  moment.  The  first  master  can  deal 
but  with  a  few,  the  next  v/ith  more,  and  so  still  upward  as  reason 
groweth  on  and  receives  without  forcing.  It  is  the  foundation  well 
and  soundly  laid,  which  makes  all  the  upper  building  muster,  with 
countenance  and  continuance.  If  I  were  to  strike  the  stroke,  as  I  am 
but  to  give  counsel,  the  first  pains  truly  taken  should  in  good  truth  l)e 
most  liberally  recompensed  ;  and  less  allowed  still  upward,  as  the  pains 
diminish  and  the  ease  increaseth.  Whereat  no  master  hath  cause  to 
repine,  so  he  may  have  his  children  well  grounded  in  the  Elementarie. 
Whose  imperfection  at  this  day  doth  marvellously  trouble  both  masters 
and  scholars,  so  that  we  can  hardly  do  any  good,  nay,  scantly  tell  how 
to  place  the  too  too  raw  boys  in  any  certain  form,  with  hope  to  go  for- 
ward orderly,  the  ground-work  of  their  entry  being  so  rotten  under 
neath."     {PP.,  pp.  233,  4.) 


MULCASTER.  97 


5.  The  elementary  course.    English. 

many  of  which  carried  great  weight  with  them,  against  our 
sacrifice  of  education  to  examination.  Our  present  system, 
whether  good  or  bad,  is  the  result  of  accident.  Winchester 
and  Eton  had  large  endowments,  and  naturally  endeavoured 
by  means  of  these  endowments  to  get  hold  of  clever  boys. 
At  first  no  doubt  they  succeeded  fairly  well ;  but  other 
schools  felt  bound  to  compete  for  juvenile  brains,  and  as  the 
number  of  prizes  increased,  many  of  our  preparatory  schools 
became  mere  racing  stables  for  children  destined  at  12  or 
14  to  run  for  "scholarship  stakes."  Thus,  in  the  scramble 
for  the  money  all  thought  of  education  has  been  lost  sight 
of;  injury  has  been  done  in  many  cases  to  those  who  have 
succeeded,  still  greater  injury  to  those  who  have  failed  or 
who  have  from  the  first  been  considered  "out  of  the  running." 
These  very  serious  evils  would  have  been  avoided  had  we 
taken  counsel  with  Mulcaster :  "  Pity  it  were  for  so  petty  a 
gain  to  forego  a  greater ;  to  win  an  hour  in  the  morning  and 
lose  the  whole  day  after ;  as  those  people  most  commonly 
do  which  start  out  of  their  beds  too  early  before  they  be  well 
awaked  or  know  what  it  is  o'clock ;  and  be  drowsy  when 
they  are  up  for  want  of  their  sleep."  {PP.,  p.  19;  see  also 
EL,  xi.,  pp.  52  ff.) 

§  9.  (5)  It  would  have  been  a  vast  gain  to  all  Europe  if 
Mulcaster  had  been  followed  instead  of  Sturm.  He  was  ont 
of  the  earliest  advocates  of  the  use  of  English  instead  of 
Latin  (see  Appendix,  p.  534),  and  good  reading  and  writing 
in  English  were  to  be  secured  before  Latin  was  begun.  His 
elementary  course  included  these  five  things :  English  reading, 
English  writing,  drawing,  singing,  playing  a  musical  instru- 
ment. If  the  first  course  were  made  to  occupy  the  school- 
time  up  to  the  age  of  1 2,  Mulcaster  held  that  more  would 
be  done  between  12  and  16  than  between  7  and   17  ir 


98  MULCASTER. 


6.  Girls  as  well  as  Boys. 


the  ordinary  way.  There  would  be  the  further  gain 
that  the  children  would  not  be  set  against  learning.  "  Because 
of  the  too  timely  onset  too  little  is  done  in  too  long  a  time, 
and  the  school  is  made  a  torture,  which  as  it  brings  forth 
delight  in  the  end  when  learning  is  held  fast,  so  should  it 
pass  on  very  pleasantly  by  the  way,  while  it  is  in  learning."  * 

{PP.  33-) 
§  ID.  (6)  Among  the  many  changes  brought  about  in  the 

nineteenth  century  we  find  little  that  can  compare  in  impor- 
tance with  the  advance  in  the  education  of  women.  In  the 
last  century,  whenever  a  woman  exercised  her  mental  powers 
she  had  to  do  it  by  stealth,t  and  her  position  was  degraded 
indeed  when  compared  not  only  with  her  descendants  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  but  also  with  her  ancestors  of  the 
sixteenth.  This  I  know  has  been  disputed  by  some  authori- 
ties, e.g.,  by  the  late  Professor  Brewer  :  but  to  others,  e.g.,  to 
a  man  who,  as  regards  honesty  and  wisdom,  has  had  few  equals 
and  no  superiors  in  investigating  the  course  of  education,  I 
mean  the  late  Joseph  Payne,  this  educational  superiority  of 
the  women  of  Elizabeth's  time  has  seemed  to  be  entirely 

•  Quaint  as  we  find  Mulcaster  in  his  mode  of  expression,  the  thing 
expressed  is  sometimes  rather  what  we  should  expect  from  Herbert 
Spencer  than  from  a  schoohnaster  of  the  Renascence.  I  have  met  with 
nothing  more  modern  in  thought  than  the  following :  "  In  time  all 
learning  may  be  brought  into  one  tongue,  and  that  natural  to  the  in- 
habitant :  so  that  schooling  for  tongues  may  prove  needless,  as  once 
they  were  not  needed  ;  but  it  can  never  fall  out  that  arts  and  sciences  in 
their  right  nature  shall  be  but  most  necessary  for  any  commonwealth 
that  is  not  given  over  unto  too  too  much  barbarousness. "  {PP.,  240.) 

t  •*  Subject  to  a  regulation  like  that  of  the  ancient  Spartans,  the 
theft  of  knowledge  in  our  sex  is  only  connived  at  while  carefully  con- 
cealed, and  if  displayed  [is]  punished  with  disgrace."  So  says  Mrs. 
Barbauld,  and  I  have  met  with  similar  passages  in  other  female  writers. 


MULCASTER.  99 


7.  Training  of  Teachers, 


beyond  question.  On  this  point  Mulcaster's  evidence  is 
very  valuable,  and,  to  me  at  least,  conclusive.  He  not  only 
"  admits  young  maidens  to  learn,"  but  says  that  "  custom 
stands  for  him,"  and  that  "  the  custom  of  my  country 
.  .  .  hath  made  the  maidens'  train  her  own  approved 
Imvail."  {PP.,  p.  167.) 

§  II.  (7)  Of  all  the  educational  reforms  of  the  nineteenth 
century  bv  far  the  most  fruitful  and  most  expansive  is,  in  my 
opinion,  the  training  of  teachers.  In  this,  as  in  most  educa- 
tional matters,  the  English,  though  advancing,  are  in  the 
rear.  Far  more  is  made  of  "  training  "  on  the  Continent  and 
in  the  United  States  than  in  England.  And  yet  we  made  a 
good  start.  Our  early  writers  on  education  saw  that  the 
teacher  has  immense  influence,  and  that  to  turn  this  influence 
to  good  account  he  must  have  made  a  study  of  his  profession 
and  have  learnt  "  the  best  that  has  been  thought  and  done  " 
in  it.  Every  occupation  in  life  has  a  traditional  capital  of 
knowledge  and  experience,  and  those  who  intend  to  follow 
the  business,  whatever  it  may  be,  are  required  to  go  through 
some  kind  of  training  or  apprenticeship  before  they  earn 
wages.  To  this  rule  there  is  but  one  exception.  In  English 
elementary  schools  children  are  paid  to  "  teach  "  children, 
and  in  the  higher  schools  the  beginner  is  allowed  to  blunder 
at  the  expense  of  his  first  pupils  into  whatever  skill  he  may 
in  the  end  manage  to  pick  up.  But  our  English  practice 
received  no  encouragement  from  the  early  English  writers, 
Mulcaster,  Brinsley,*  and  Hoole. 


•  John  Brinsley  (the  elder)  who  married  a  sister  of  Bishop  Hall's  and 
kept  school  at  Ashby-de-la-Zouch  (was  it  the  Grammar  School?)  was 
one  of  the  best  English  writers  on  education.  In  his  Consolation  for  out 
Grammar  Schooles,  published  eaiiyinthe  sixteen  hundreds,  he  says  I 


100  MULCASTER. 


Training  college  at  the  Universities. 


As  far  as  I  am  aware  tlie  first  suggestion  of  a  training 
college  for  teachers  came  from  Mulcaster.  He  schemed 
seven  special  colleges  at  the  University ;  and  of  these  one 
is  for  teachers.  Some  of  his  suggestions,  e.g.,  about 
"University  Readers"  have  lately  been  adopted,  though 
without  acknowledgment;  and  as  the  University  of 
Cambridge  has  since  1B79  acknowledged  the  existence  of 
teachers,  and  appointed  a  "  Teachers'  Training  Syndicate," 
we  may  perhaps  in  a  few  centuries  more  carry  out  his  scheme, 
and  have  training  colleges  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge.* 
Some  of  the  reasons  he  gives  us  have  not  gone  out  of  date 
with  his  English.     They  are  as  follows  : — 

"  And  why  should  not  these  men  (the  teachers)  have  both 
this  sufficiency  in  learning,  and  such  room  to  rest  in,  thence 
to  be  chosen  and  set  forth  for  the  common  service?  Be 
either    children   or   schools   so   small  a   portion    of    our 

"  Amongst  others  myself  having  first  had  long  experience  of  the  mani- 
fold evils  which  grow  from  the  ignorance  of  a  right  order  of  teaching, 
and  afterwards  some  gracious  taste  of  the  sweetness  that  is  to  be  found 
in  the  better  courses  truly  known  and  practised,  I  have  betaken  me 
almost  wholly,  for  many  years  unto  this  weighty  work,  and  that  not 
without  much  comfort,  through  the  goodness  of  our  blessed  God."  (p.  i.) 
"And  for  the  most  part  wherein  any  good  is  done,  it  is  ordinarily  effected 
by  the  endless  vexation  of  the  painful  master,  the  extreme  labour  and 
terror  of  the  poor  children  with  enduring  far  overmuch  and  long  severity. 
Now  whence  proceedeth  all  this  but  because  so  few  of  those  who  under- 
take this  function  are  acquainted  with  any  good  method  or  right  order 
of  instruction  fit  for  a  grammar  school  ? "  (p.  2. )  It  is  sad  to  think 
how  many  generations  have  since  suffered  from  teachers  "unacquainted 
with  any  good  method  or  right  order  of  instruction."  And  it  seems  to 
justify  Goethe's  dictum,  "  Der  Engldttder  ist  eigenUich  ohne  httelligenz," 
that  for  several  generations  to  come  this  evil  will  be  Vmt  partially  abated. 
•  At  Cambridge  (as  also  in  London  and  Edinburgh)  there  is  already 
a  Training  College  for  Women  Teachers  in  Secondary  Schools. 


MULCASTER.  lOI 


M.'s  reasons  for  training  teachers. 

multitude?  or  is  the  framing  of  young  minds,  and  the  train- 
ing of  their  bodies  so  mean  a  point  of  cunning  ?  Be  school- 
masters in  this  Reahn  such  a  paucity,  as  they  are  not  even 
in  good  sadness  to  be  soundly  thought  on?  If  the  chancel 
have  a  minister,  the  belfry  hath  a  master :  and  where  youth 
is,  as  it  is  eachwhere,  there  must  be  trainers,  or  there  will  be 
worse.  He  that  will  not  allow  of  this  careful  provision  for 
such  a  seminary  of  masters,  is  most  unworthy  either  to  have 
had  a  good  master  himself,  or  hereafter  to  have  a  good  one 
for  his.  Why  should  not  teachers  be  well  provided  for,  to 
continue  their  whole  life  in  the  school,  as  Divines,  Lawyers, 
Physicians  do  in  their  several  professions?  Thereby 
judgment,  cunning,  and  discretion  will  grow  in  them  :  and 
masters  would  prove  old  men,  and  such  as  Xenophon  setteth 
over  children  in  the  schooling  of  Cyrus.  Whereas  now,  the 
school  being  used  but  for  a  shift,  afterward  to  pass  thence  to 
the  other  professions,  though  it  send  out  very  sufficient  men 
to  them,  itself  remaineth  too  too  naked,  considering  the 
necessity  of  the  thing.  I  conclude,  therefore,  that  this 
trade  requireth  a  particular  college,  for  these  four  cnu-es. 
1.  First,  for  the  subject  being  the  mean  to  make  or  mar  the 
whole  fry  of  our  State.  2.  Secondly,  for  the  number, 
whether  of  them  that  are  to  learn,  or  of  them  that  are  to 
teach.  3.  Thirdly,  for  the  necessity  of  the  piofession,  which 
may  not  be  spared.  4.  Fourthly,  for  the  matter  of  their  study, 
which  is  comparable  to  the  greatest  professions,  for  langi.age, 
for  judgment,  for  skill  how  to  train,  for  variety  in  all  points 
of  learning,  wherein  the  framing  of  the  mind,  and  the 
exercising  of  the  body  craveth  exquisite  consideration, 
beside  the  staidness  of  the  person."     {PP.,  pp.  248,  9.) 

§  12.  Though   once  a  celebrated   man,    and   moreover 
the  master  of  Edmund  Spenser,  Mulcaster  has  been  long 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


I02  MULCASTER. 


M.'s  Life  and  Writings. 


forgotten ;  but  when  the  history  of  education  in  England 
comes  to  be  written,  the  historian  will  show  that  few  school- 
masters in  the  fifteen  hundreds  or  since  were  so  enlightened 
as  the  first  headmaster  of  Merchant  Taylors'.* 


*  All  we  know  of  his  life  may  soon  be  told.  Richard  Mulcaster  was 
a  Cumberland  man  of  good  family,  an  "  esquier  borne,"  as  he  calls  him- 
self, who  was  at  Eton,  then  King's  College,  Cambridge,  then  at  Christ 
Church,  Oxford.  His  birth  year  was  probably  1530  or  1531,  and  he 
became  a  student  of  Christ  Church  in  1555.  In  1558  he  settled  as  a 
schoolmaster  in  London,  and  was  elected  first  headmaster  of  Merchant 
Taylors'  School,  which  dates  from  1561.  Here  he  remained  twenty- 
five  years,  i.e.,  till  1586.  Whether  he  then  became,  as  H.  B.  Wilson 
says,  surmaster  of  St.  Paul's,  I  cannot  determine,  but  "he  came  in" 
hlghmaster  in  1596,  and  held  that  office  for  twelve  years.  Though  in 
1598  Elizabeth  made  him  rector  of  Stanford  Rivers,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  he  did  not  give  up  the  highmastership  till  1608,  when  he  must 
have  been  about  77  years  old.  He  died  at  Stanford  Rivers  three  years 
later.  While  at  Merchant  Taylors',  viz.,  in  1581  and  1582,  he  published 
the  two  books  which  have  secured  for  him  a  permanent  place  in  the 
history  of  education  in  England,  The  first  was  his  Positions,  the 
second  "The  first  part"  (and,  as  it  proved,  the  only  part)  of  his 
EUmentarie.  Of  his  other  writings,  his  Cato  Chrisdanus  mQvns  to  have 
been  the  most  important,  and  a  very  interesting  quotation  from  it  has 
been  preserved  in  Robotham's  Preface  to  th&Janua  of  Comenius  ;  but 
the  book  itself  is  lost :  at  least  I  never  heard  of  a  copy,  and  I  have 
sought  in  vain  in  the  British  Museum,  and  at  the  University  Libraries 
of  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  His  Catechismus  Paulinus  is  a  rare  book, 
but  Rev.  J.  H.  Lupton  has  found  and  described  a  copy  in  the  Bodleian. 


IX. 

RATICHIUS. 

(1571-1635.) 


§  r.  The  history  of  Education  in  the  fifteen  hundreds 
tells  chiefly  of  two  very  different  classes  of  men.  First  we 
have  the  practical  men,  who  set  themselves  to  supply  the 
general  demand  for  instruction  in  the  classical  languages. 
This  class  includes  most  of  the  successful  schoolmasters,  such 
as  Sturm,  Trotzendorf,  Neandef,  and  the  Jesuits.  The  other 
class  were  thinkers,  who  never  attempted  to  teach,  but 
merely  gave  form  to  truths  which  would  in  the  end  affect 
teaching.     These  were  especially  Rabelais  and  Montaigne. 

§  2.  With  the  sixteen  hundreds  we  come  to  men  who 
have  earned  for  themselves  a  name  unpleasant  in  our  ears, 
although  it  might  fittingly  be  applied  to  all  the  greatest 
benefactors  of  the  human  race.  I  mean  the  name  of 
Innovators.  These  men  were  not  successful ;  at  least  they 
seemed  unsuccessful  to  their  contemporaries,  who  contrasted 
tlie  promised  results  with  the  actual.  But  their  efforts  were 
by  no  means  thrown  away :  and  posterity  at  least,  has 
acknowledged  its  obligations  to  them.  One  sees  now  that 
they  could  hardly  have  expected  justice  in  their  own  time. 
It  is  safe  to  adopt  the  customary  plan;  it  is  safe  to  speculate 
how  that  plan  may  and  should  be  altered ;  but  it  is  dangerous 


J04  RATICHIUS. 


Principles  of  the  Innovators. 


to  attempt  to  translate  new  thought  into  new  action,  and 
boldly  to  advance  without  a  track,  trusting  to  principles 
which  may,  like  the  compass,  show  you  the  right  direction, 
but,  like  the  compass,  will  give  you  no  hint  of  the  obstacles 
that  lie  before  you. 

I'he  chief  demands  made  by  the  Innovators  have  been : 
I  St,  that  the  study  of  things  should  precede,  or  be  united 
with,  the  study  of  words  (v.  Appendix,  p.  538) ;  2nd,  that 
knowledge  should  be  communicated,  where  possible,  by 
appeals  to  the  senses ;  3rd,  that  all  linguistic  study  should 
begin  with  that  of  the  mother-tongue ;  4th,  that  Latin  and 
Greek  should  be  taught  to  such  boys  only  as  would  be  likely 
to  complete  a  learned  education ;  5th,  that  physical  educa- 
tion should  be  attended  to  in  all  classes  of  society  for  the 
sake  of  health,  not  simply  with  a  view  to  gentlemanly 
accomplishments;  6th,  that  a  new  method  of  teaching 
should  be  adopted,  framed  ''according  to  Nature." 

Their  notions  of  method  have,  of  course,  been  very 
various ;  but  their  systems  mostly  agree  in  these 
particulars : — 

I,  They  proceed  from  the  concrete  to  the  abstract,  giving 
some  knowledge  of  the  thing  itself  before  the  rules  which 
refer  to  it.  2.  They  employ  the  student  in  analysing  matter 
put  before  him,  rather  than  in  working  synthetically 
according  to  precept.  3,  They  require  the  student  to  ieach 
himself  zndi  investigate  for  himself  under  the  superintendence 
and  guidance  of  the  master,  rather  than  be  taught  by  the 
master  and  receive  anything  on  the  master's  authority. 
4.  They  rely  on  the  interest  excited  in  the  pupil  by  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge,  and  renounce  coercion.  5.  Only 
that  which  is  understood  may  be  committed  to  memory 
{v.  supra,  p.  74,  «). 


RATICHIUS.  105 


R.'s  Address  to  the  Diet. 


§  3,  The  first  of  the  Innovators  was  Wolfgang  Ratichius, 
who,  oddly  enough,  is  known  to  posterity  by  a  name  he  and 
his  contemporaries  never  heard  of.  His  father's  name  was 
Radtke  or  Ratk^,  and  the  son  having  received  a  University 
education,  translated  this  into  Ratichius.  With  our  usual 
impatience  of  redundant  syllables,  we  have  attempted  to 
reduce  the  word  to  its  original  dimensions,  and  in  the 
process  have  hit  upon  Ratich^  which  is  a  new  name 
altogether. 

Ratke  (to  adopt  the  true  form  of  the  original)  was  con- 
nected, as  Basedow  was  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  later, 
with  Holstein  and  Hamburg.  He  was  born  at  Wilster  in 
Holstein  in  1571,  and  studied  at  Hamburg  and  at  the 
University  of  Rostock.  He  afterwards  travelled  to 
Amsterdam  and  to  England,  and  it  was  perhaps  owing  to 
his  residence  in  this  country  that  he  was  acquainted  with  the 
new  philosophy  of  Bacon.  We  next  hear  of  him  at  the 
Electoral  Diet,  held  as  usual  in  Frankfurt-on-Main,  in  16 12. 
He  was  then  over  forty  years  old,  and  he  had  elaborated  a 
new  scheme  for  teaching.  Like  all  inventors,  he  was  fully 
impressed  with  the  importance  of  his  discovery,  and  he  sent 
to  the  assembled  Princes  an  address,  in  which  he  undertook 
some  startling  performances.  He  was  able,  he  said  :  (i)  to 
teach  young  or  old  Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Latin,  or  other 
languages,  in  a  very  short  time  and  without  any  difficulty; 
{2)  to  establish  schools  in  which  all  arts  should  be  taught 
and  extended;  (3)  to  introduce  and  peaceably  establish 
throughout  the  German  Empire  a  uniform  speech,  a  uniform 
government,  and  (still  more  wonderful)  a  uniform  religion. 

§  4.  Naturally  enough  the  address  arrested  the 
attention  of  the  Princes.  The  Landgraf  Lewis  of  Darm- 
stadt thought  the  matter  worthy  of  examination,  and   he 


I06  RATICHIUS. 


At  Augsburg.    At  Koethen. 


deputed  two  learned  men,  Jung  and  Helwig,  to  confer  with 
Ratke.  Their  report  was  entirely  favourable,  and  they  did 
all  they  could  to  get  for  Ratke  the  means  of  carrying  his 
sclieme  into  execution.  "  We  are,"  writes  Helwig,  "  in  bond- 
age to  Latin.  The  Greeks  and  Saracens  would  never  have 
done  so  much  for  posterity  if  they  had  spent  their  youth  in 
acquiring  a  foreign  tongue.  We  must  study  our  own 
language,  and  then  sciences.  Ratichius  has  discovered  the 
art  of  teaching  according  to  Nature.  By  his  method, 
languages  will  be  quickly  learned,  so  that  we  shall  have  time 
for  science ;  and  science  will  be  learned  even  better  still,  as 
the  natural  system  suits  best  with  science,  which  is  the  study 
of  Nature."  Moved  by  this  report  the  Town  Council  of 
Augsburg  agreed  to  give  Ratke  the  necessary  power  over 
their  schools,  and  accompanied  by  Helwig,  he  accordingly 
went  to  Augsburg  and  set  to  work.  But  the  good  folks  of 
Augsburg  were  like  children,  who  expect  a  plant  as  soon  as 
they  have  sown  the  seed.  They  were  speedily  dissatisfied, 
and  Ratke  and  Helwig  left  Augsburg,  the  latter  much  dis- 
couraged but  still  faithful  to  his  friend.  Ratke  went  to 
Frankfurt  again,  and  a  Commission  was  appointed  to  con- 
sider his  proposals,  but  by  its  advice  Ratke  was  "allowed  to 
try  elsewhere." 

§  5.  He  would  never  have  had  a  fair  chance  had  he  not 
had  a  firm  friend  in  the  Duchess  Dorothy  of  Weimar.  Then, 
as  now,  we  find  women  taking  the  lead  in  everything  which 
promises  to  improve  education,  and  this  good  Duchess  sent 
for  Ratke  and  tested  his  method  by  herself  taking  lessons  of 
him  in  Hebrew.  With  this  adult  pupil  his  plans  seem  to 
have  answered  well,  and  she  always  continued  his  admirer 
and  advocate.  By  her  advice  her  brother.  Prince  Lewis  of 
Anhalt-Koethen,  decided  that  the  great  discovery  should  not 
be  lost  for  want  of  a  fair  trial;  so  he  called  Ratke  to  Koethen 


RATICHIUS.  107 


Failure  at  Koethen. 


and  complied  with  all  his  demands.  A  band  of  teachers 
sworn  to  secrecy  were  first  of  all  instructed  in  the  art  by 
R  atke  himself.  Next,  schools  with  very  costly  appliances 
were  provided,  and  lastly  some  500  little  Koetheners — boys 
and  girls — were  collected  and  handed  over  to  Ratke  to  work 
his  wonders  with. 

§  6.  It  never  seems  to  have  occurred  either  to  Ratke  or 
his  friends  or  the  Prince  that  all  the  principles  and  methods 
that  ever  were  or  ever  will  be  established  could  not  enable  a 
man  without  experience  to  organize  a  school  of  500  children. 
A  man  who  had  never  been  in  the  water  might  just  as  well 
plunge  into  the  sea  at  once  and  trust  to  his  knowledge  of 
the  laws  of  fluid  pressure  to  save  him  from  drowning.  There 
are  endless  details  to  be  settled  which  would  bewilder  any 
one  without  experience.  Some  years  ago  school-buildings 
were  provided  for  one  of  our  county  schools,  and  the  council 
consulted  a  master  of  great  experience  who  strongly  urged 
them  not  to  start  as  they  had  intended  with  300  boys.  "  1 
would  not  undertake  such  a  thing,"  said  he.  When  pressed 
for  his  reason,  he  said  quietly,  "  I  would  not  be  responsible 
for  the  boots"  I  have  no  doubt  Ratke  had  to  come  down 
from  his  principles  and  his  new  method  to  deal  with 
numberless  little  questions  of  caps,  bonnets,  late  children, 
broken  windows,  and  the  like ;  and  he  was  without  the  tact 
and  the  experience  which  enable  many  ordinary  men  and 
women,  who  know  nothing  of  principles,  to  settle  such 
matters  satisfactorily. 

§  7.  Years  afterwards  there  was  another  thinker  much 
more  profound  and  influential  than  Ratke,  who  was  quite 
as  incompetent  to  organize.  I  mean  Pestalozzi.  But 
Pestalozzi  had  one  great  advantage  over  Ratke.  He 
attached  all  his  assistants  to  him  by  inspiring  them  with 


I08  RATTCHIUS. 

German  in  the  school.    R.'s  services. 

love  and  reverence  of  himself.  This  made  up  for  many 
deficiencies.  But  Ratke  was  not  like  the  fatherly,  self- 
sacrificing  Pestalozzi.  He  leads  us  to  suspect  him  of  being 
an  impostor  by  making  a  mystery  of  his  invention,  and  he 
never  could  keep  the  peace  with  his  assistants. 

§  8.  So,  as  might  have  been  expected,  the  grand  ex- 
periment failed.  The  Prince,  exasperated  at  being  placed 
in  a  somewhat  ridiculous  position,  and  possibly  at  the 
serious  loss  of  money  into  the  bargain,  revenged  himself  on 
Ratke  by  throwing  him  into  prison,  nor  would  he  release 
him  till  he  had  made  him  sign  a  paper  in  which  he  admitted 
that  he  had  undertaken  more  than  he  was  able  to  fulfil. 

§  9.  This  was  no  doubt  the  case;  and  yet  Ratke  had 
done  more  for  the  Prince  than  the  Prince  for  Ratke.  In 
Koethen  had  been  opened  the  first  German  school  in  which 
the  children  were  taught  to  make  a  study  of  the  German 
language. 

Ratke  never  recovered  from  his  failure  at  Koethen,  and 
nothing  memorable  is  recorded  of  him  afterwards.  He 
died  in  1635. 

§  10.  Much  was  written  by  Ratke ;  much  has  been 
written  about  him  ;  and  those  who  wish  to  know  more  than 
the  few  particulars  I  have  given  may  find  all  they  want  in 
Raumer  or  Barnard.  The  Innovator  failed  in  gaining  the 
applause  of  his  contemporaries,  and  he  does  not  seem  to 
stand  high  in  the  respect  of  posterity ;  but  he  was  a  pioneer 
in  the  art  of  didactics,  and  the  rules  which  Raumer  has 
gathered  from  the  Methodus  Institutiords  nova .... 
Ratichii  et  Ratichianorutn,  published  by  Rhenius  at 
Leipzig  in  1626,  raise  some  of  the  most  interesting  points 
to  which  a  teacher's  attention  can  be  directed.  I  will 
therefore  state  them,  and  say  briefly  what  I  think  of  them. 


RATICHIUS.  109 


I.  Follow  Nature.    2.  One  thing  at  a  time. 

§  II.  I.  In  everything  we  should  follow  the  order  of 
Nature.  There  is  a  certain  natural  sequence  along  which  the 
human  int'"igence  moves  in  acquiring  knowledge.  Thii 
sequence  miist  be  studied,  and  instruction  must  be  based  on 
the  knowledge  of  it. 

Here,  as  in  all  teaching  of  the  Reformers,  we  find 
"  Nature  "  used  as  if  the  word  stood  for  some  definite  idea. 
From  the  time  of  the  Stoics  we  have  been  exhorted  to 
"  follow  Nature."  In  more  modern  times  the  demand  was 
well  formulated  by  Picus  of  Mirandola :  "  Take  no  heed 
what  thing  many  men  do,  but  what  thing  the  very  law  of 
Nature,  what  thing  very  reason,  what  thing  our  Lord  Himself 
showeth  thee  to  be  done."  (Trans,  by  Sir  Thomas  More, 
quoted  in  Seebohm,  Oxford  Reformers.) 

Pope,  always  happy  in  expression  but  not  always  clear  in 
thought,  talks  of — 

"  Unerring  Nature,  still  divinely  bright. 
One  clear,  unchanged,  and  universal  light." 

{Essay  on  C,  i,  70.) 

But  as  Dr.  W.  T.  Harris  has  well  pointed  out  {St.  Louis, 
Mo.,  School  Report,  '78,  '79,  p.  217),  with  this  word  "Nature" 
writers  on  education  do  a  great  deal  of  juggling.  Some 
times  they  use  it  for  the  external  world,  including  in  it  man's 
unconscious  growth,  sometimes  they  make  it  stand  for  the 
ideal.  What  sense  does  Ratke  attach  to  it  ?  One  might 
have  some  difficulty  in  determining.  Perhaps  the  best 
meaning  we  can  nowadays  find  for  his  rule  is  :  study 
Psychology. 

§  12.  II.  One    thing  at  a   time.      Master   one   subject 
before  you  take  up  another.     For  each  language  master  a 
single  book.      Go  over  it  again  and  again  till  you  have 
completely  made  it  your  own. 
10 


no  RATICHIUS. 


3.  Over  and  over  again. 


In  its  crude  /orm  this  rule  could  not  be  carried  out.  If 
the  attempt  were  made  the  results  would  be  no  better  than 
from  the  six  months'  course  of  Terence  under  Ratke.  It  is 
"against  all  Nature"  to  go  on  hammering  away  at  one 
thing  day  after  day  without  any  change;  and  there  is  a 
point  beyond  which  any  attempt  at  thoroughness  must  end 
in  simple  stagnation.  The  rule  then  would  have  two  fatal 
drawbacks:  ist,  it  would  lead  to  monotony  ;  2nd,  it  would 
require  a  completeness  of  learning  which  to  the  young 
would  be  impossible.  But  in  these  days  no  one  follows 
Ratke.  On  the  other  hand,  concentration  in  study  is  often 
neglected,  and  our  time-tables  afford  specimens  of  the  most 
ingenious  mosaic  work,  in  which  everything  has  a  place,  but 
in  so  small  a  quantity  that  the  learners  never  find  out  what 
each  thing  really  is.  School  subjects  are  like  the  clubs  of 
the  eastern  tale,  which  did  not  give  out  their  medicinal 
properties  till  the  patient  got  warm  in  the  use  of  them. 

When  a  good  hold  on  a  subject  has  once  been  secured, 
short  study,  with  considerable  intervals  between,  may  suffice 
to  keep  up  and  even  increase  the  knowledge  already 
obtained ;  but  in  matters  of  any  difficulty,  e.g.,  in  a  new 
language,  no  start  is  ever  made  without  allotting  to  it  much 
more  than  two  or  three  hours  a  week.  It  is  perhaps  a 
mistake  to  suppose  that  if  a  good  deal  of  the  language  may 
be  learnt  by  giving  it  ten  hours  a  week,  twice  that  amount 
might  be  acquired  in  twenty  hours.  It  is  a  much  greater 
mistake  if  we  think  that  one-fifth  of  the  amount  might  be 
acquired  in  two  hours. 

§  13.  III.  The  same  iking  should  be  repeated  over  and 
over  again. 

This  is  like  the  Jesuits'  Repetiiio  Mater  Studiorum;  and  the 
same  notion  was  well  developed  200  years  later  by  Jacotot. 


RATICHIUS.  Ill 


4.  Everything  through  the  mother-tongue. 

By  Ratke's  application  of  this  rule  some  odd  results  were 
produced.  The  little  Koetheners  were  drilled  for  German 
in  a  book  of  the  Bible  (Genesis  was  selected),  and  then  for 
Latin  in  z  play  of  Terence. 

Unlike  many  "  theoretical  notions  "  this  precept  of  Ratke's 
comes  more  and  more  into  favour  as  the  schoolmaster 
increases  in  age  and  experience.  But  we  must  be  careful  to 
take  our  pupils  with  us ;  and  this  repeating  the  same  thing 
over  and  over  may  seem  to  them  what  marking  time  would 
seem  to  soldiers  who  wanted  to  march.  Even  more  than 
the  last  rule  this  is  open  to  the  objections  that  monotony  is 
deadening,  and  perfect  attainment  of  anything  but  words 
impossible.  In  keeping  to  a  subject  then  we  must  not  rely 
on  simple  repetition.  The  rule  now  accepted  is  thus  stated 
by  Diesterweg  : — "  Every  subject  of  instruction  should  be 
viewed  from  as  many  sides  as  possible,  and  as  varied 
exercises  as  possible  should  be  set  on  one  and  the  same 
thing."  The  art  of  the  master  is  shown  in  disguising 
repetition  and  bringing  known  things  into  new  connection, 
so  that  they  may  partially  at  least  retain  their  freshness. 

§  14.  IV.  First  let  the  mother-tongue  be  studied,  and 
teach  everything  through  the  mother-tojigue,  so  that  the 
learner's  attention  juay  not  be  diverted  to  the  language. 

We  saw  that  Sturm,  the  leading  schoolmaster  of  Renas- 
cence, tried  to  suppress  the  mother-tongue  and  substitute 
Latin  for  it.  Against  this  a  vigorous  protest  was  made  in 
this  country  by  Mulcaster.  And  our  language  was  never 
conquered  by  a  foreign  language,  as  German  was  conquered 
first  by  Latin  and  then  by  French.  But  "  the  tongues " 
have  always  had  the  lion's  share  of  attention  in  the  school- 
room, and  though  many  have  seen  and  Milton  has  said 
that  "our  understanding  cannot  in  this  body  found  itself 


112  RATICHIUS. 


5.  Nothing  on  compulsion. 


but  on  sensible  things,"  this  truth  is  only  now  making  its 
way  into  the  schoolroom.  Hitherto  the  foundation  has 
hardly  been  laid  before  "  the  schoolmaster  has  stept  in 
and  staid  the  building  by  confounding  the  language."* 
Ratke's  protest  against  this  will  always  be  put  to  his  credit 
in  the  history  of  education. 

§  15.  V.  Everything  without  constraint.  "The  young 
should  not  be  beaten  to  make  them  learn  or  for  not  having 
learnt.  It  is  compulsion  and  stripes  that  set  young  people 
against  studying.  Boys  are  often  beaten  for  not  having 
learnt,  but  they  would  have  learnt  had  they  been  well 
taught.  The  human  understanding  is  so  formed  that  it 
has  pleasure  in  receiving  what  it  should  retain :  and  this 
pleasure  you  destroy  by  your  harshness.  Where  the  master 
is  skilful  and  judicious,  the  boys  will  take  to  him  and .  to 
their  lessons.  Folly  lurks  indeed  in  the  heart  of  the  child 
and  must  be  driven  out  with  the  rod;  but  not  by  the 
teacher" 

Here  at  least  there  is  nothing  original  in  Ratke's  precept. 
A  goodly  array  of  authorities  have  condemned  learning 
"  upon  compulsion."    This  array  extends  at  least  as  far  as 

•  Lectures  attd  Essays:  English  in  School,  hy  ].  R.  Seeley,  p.  222. 
Elsewhere  in  the  same  lecture  (p.  229)  Professor  Seeley  says:  "The 
schoolmaster  might  set  this  right.  Every  boy  that  enters  the  school  is 
a  talking  creature.  He  is  a  performer,  in  his  small  degree,  upon  fhe 
same  instrument  as  Milton  and  Shakespeare.  Only  do  not  sacrifice 
this  advantage.  Do  not  try  by  artificial  and  laborious  processes  to  give 
him  a  new  knowledge  before  you  have  developed  that  which  he  has 
abready.  Train  and  perfect  the  gift  of  speech,  unfold  all  that  is  in  it, 
and  you  train  at  the  same  time  the  power  of  thought  and  the  power  of 
intellectual  sympathy,  you  enable  your  pupil  to  think  the  thoughts  and 
to  delight  in  the  words  of  great  philosophers  and  poets."  I  wish  this 
lecture  were  published  separately. 


RATICHIUS.  113 


6.  Nothing  to  be  learnt  by  heart. 

from  Plalo  to  Bishop  Dupanloup.  "In  the  case  of  the 
mind;  no  study  pursued  under  compulsion  remains  rooted 
in  the  memory,"  says  Plato.*  "  Everything  depends,"  says 
Dupanloup,  "on  what  the  teacher  induces  his  pupils  to  do 
freely:  for  authority  is  not  constraint — it  ought  to  be 
inseparable  from  respect  and  devotion.  I  will  respect 
human  liberty  in  the  smallest  child."  As  far  as  I  have 
observed  there  is  only  one  class  of  persons  whom  the 
authorities  from  Plato  to  Dupanloup  have  failed  to 
convince,  and  that  is  the  schoolmasters.  This  is  the  class 
to  which  I  have  belonged,  and  I  should  not  be  prepared  to 
take  Plato's  counsel :  "  Bring  up  your  boys  in  their  studies 
without  constraint  and  in  a  playful  manner."  {lb.)  At  the 
same  time  I  see  the  importance  of  self-activity,  and  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  self-activity  upon  compulsion.  You  can 
no  more  hurry  thought  with  the  cane  than  you  can  hurry  a 
snail  with  a  pin.  So  without  interest  there  can  be  no 
proper  learning.  Interest  must  be  aroused — even  in  Latin 
Grammar.  But  if  they  could  choose  their  own  occupation, 
the  boys,  however  interested  in  their  work,  would  probably 
find  something  else  more  interesting  still.  We  cannot  get 
on,  and  never  shall,  without  the  must. 

§  16.  VI.     Nothing  may  be  iearnt  by  heart. 

It  has  always  been  a  common  mistake  in  the  schoolroom 
to  confound  the  power  ot  lunning  along  a  sequence  of 
sounds  with  a  mastery  of  Ihe  thought  with  which  those 
sounds  ihould  be  connectevl.  But,  as  I  have  remarked 
elsewhere  {supra,  p.  74,  note),  the  two  things,  though  different, 
are  not  opposed.  Too  much  is  likely  to  be  made  of  learn- 
ing b)'  heart,  foi  of  the  two  things  the  pupils  find  it  the 

*  Rep.  bk.  vii,  536,  adf. ;  Davies  and  Vaughan,  p.  264. 


1 14  RATICHIUS. 

7.  Uniformity.    8.  Ne  modus  rei  ante  rem. 

easier,  and  the  teacher  the  more  easily  tested.  We  may, 
however,  guard  against  the  abuse  without  giving  up  the  use. 

§  17.  VII.*     Uniformity  in  all  things. 

Both  in  the  way  of  learning,  and  in  the  books,  and  the 
rules,  a  uniform  method  should  be  observed,  says  Ratke. 

The  right  plan  is  for  the  learner  to  acquire  familiar 
knowledge  of  one  subject  or  part  of  a  subject,  and  then  use 
this  %r  comparison  when  he  learns  beyond  it.  If  the  same 
method  of  learning  is  adopted  throughout,  this  will  render 
comparison  more  easy  and  more  striking.f 

§  18.  VIII.  The  thing  itself  should  come  first,  then 
whatever  explains  it. 

To  those  who  do  not  with  closed  eyes  cling  to  the 
method  of  their  predecessors,  this  rule  may  seem  founded 
on  common-sense.  Would  any  one  but  a  "  teacher,"  or  a 
writer  of  school  books,  ever  think  of  making  children  who 
do  not  know  a  word  of  French,  learn  about  the  French 
accents  ?  And  yet  what  Ratke  said  250  years  ago  has  not 
been  disproved  since  :  "Accidens  rei  priusquam  rem  ipsara 
quaerere  prorsus  absonum  et  absurdum  esse  videtur," 
which  I  take  to  mean :  "  Before  the  learner  has  a  notion 
of  the  thing  itself,  it  is  folly  to  worry  him  about  its  accidents 
or  even  its  properties,  essential  or  unessential.  Ne  modus 
rei  ante  rem.\ 


•  In  Buisson  {Diclionfiaire)  No.  7  is  "The  children  must  have 
frequent  play,  and  a  break  after  every  lesson."  Raumer  connects  this 
with  No.  6,  and  says:  "breaks  vrere  rendered  necessary  by  Ratke's 
plan,  which  kept  the  learners  far  too  silent." 

+  In  the  matter  of  grammar  Ratke's  advice,  so  long  disregarded,  has 
recently  been  followed  in  the  "Parallel  Grammar  Series,"  published 
by  Messrs.  Sonnenschem. 

t  The  ordinary  teaching  of  almost  every  subject  offers  illustrations  of 


RATICHIUS.  1 1 5 


9.  Per  inductionem  omnia. 


This  rule  of  Ratke's  warns  teachers  against  a  very 
common  mistake.  The  subject  is  to  them  in  full  view, 
and  they  make  the  most  minute  observations  on  it.  But 
these  things  cannot  be  seen  by  their  pupils ;  and  even  if  the 
beginner  could  see  these  minutiae,  he  would  find  in  them 
neither  interest  nor  advantage.  But  when  we  apply  Ratke's 
principle  more  widely,  we  find  ourselves  involved  in  the 
great  question  whether  our  method  should  be  based  on 
synthesis  or  analysis,  a  question  which  Ratke's  method  did 
not  settle  for  us. 

§  19.  IX.  Everything  by  experience  and  examination 
of  the  parts.  Or  as  he  states  the  rule  in  Latin :  Per 
inductionem  et  experimentum  omnia. 

Nothing  was  to  be  received  on  authority,  and  this 
disciple  of  Bacon  went  beyond  his  master  and  took  for  his 
motto :  Vetustas  cessit,  ratio  vicit  ("  Age  has  yielded,  reason 
prevailed");  as  if  reason  must  be  brand-new,  and  truth 
might  wax  old  and  be  ready  to  vanish  away. 


the  neglect  of  this  principle.  Take,  e.g.,  the  way  in  which  children  are 
usually  taught  to  read.  First,  they  have  to  say  the  alphabet — a  very 
easy  task  as  it  seems  to  us,  but  if  we  met  with  a  strange  word  of 
twenty-six  syllables,  and  that  not  a  compound  word,  but  one  of  which 
every  syllable  was  new  to  us,  we  might  have  some  difficulty  in 
remembering  it.  And  yet  such  a  word  would  be  to  us  what  the 
alphabet  is  to  a  child.  When  he  can  perform  this  feat,  he  is  next 
required  to  learn  the  visual  symbols  of  the  sounds  and  to  connect  these 
with  the  vocal  symbols.  Some  of  the  vocal  symbols  bring  the  child  in 
com  act  with  the  sound  itself,  but  most  are  simply  conventional.  What 
notion  does  the  child  get  of  the  aspirate  from  the  name  of  the  letter  h  ? 
Having  learnt  twenty-six  visual  and  twenty-six  vocal  symbols,  and 
connected  them  together,  the  child  finally  comes  to  the  sounds  (over  40 
in  number)  which  the  symbols  are  supposed  to  represent. 


Il6  RATICHIUS. 


R.'s  method  for  language. 


§  20.  From  these  rules  of  his  we  see  that  Ratke  did 
much  to  formulate  the  main  principles  of  Didactics.  He 
also  deserves  to  be  remembered  among  the  methodizers 
who  have  tackled  the  problem — how  to  teach  a  language. 

At  Kothen  the  instructor  of  the  lowest  class  had  to  talk 
with  the  children,  and  to  take  pains  with  their  pronunciation. 
When  they  knew  their  letters  (Ickelsamer's  plan  for  reading 
Ratke  seems  to  have  neglected)  the  teacher  read  the  Book 
of  Genesis  through  to  them,  each  chapter  twice  over,  requir- 
ing the  children  to  follow  with  eye  and  finger.  Then  the 
teacher  began  the  chapter  again,  and  read  about  four  lines 
only,  which  the  children  read  after  him.  When  the  book  had 
been  worked  over  in  this  way,  the  children  were  required  to 
read  it  through  without  assistance.  Reading  once  secured, 
the  master  proceeded  to  grammar.  He  explained,  say,  what 
a  substantive  was,  and  then  showed  instances  in  Genesis, 
and  next  required  the  children  to  point  out  others.  In 
this  way  the  grammar  was  verified  throughout  from  Genesis, 
and  the  pupils  were,  exercised  in  declining  and  conjugating 
words  taken  from  the  Book. 

When  they  advanced  to  the  study  of  Latin,  they  were 
given  a  translation  of  a  play  of  Terence,  and  worked 
over  it  several  times  before  they  were  shown  the  Latin. 

The  master  then  translated  the  play  to  them,  each  half- 
hour's  work  twice  over.  At  the  next  reading,  the  master 
translated  the  first  half-hour,  and  the  boys  translated  the 
same  piece  the  second.  Having  thus  got  through  the  play, 
they  began  again,  and  only  the  boys  translated.  After  this 
there  was  a  course  of  grammar,  which  was  applied  to  the 
Terence,  as  the  grammar  of  the  mother-tongue  had  been 
to  Genesis.  Finally,  the  pupils  were  put  through  a  course 
of  exercises,  in  which  they  had  to  turn  into  Latin  sentences 


RATICHIUS.  1 17 


R.'s  method  and  Ascham's. 


imitated  from  the  Terence,  and  differing  fjrom  the  original 
only  in  the  number  or  person  used. 

Raumer  gives  other  particulars,  and  quotes  largely  from 
the  almost  unreadable  account  of  Kromayer,  one  of  Ratke's 
followers,  in  order  that  we  may  have,  as  he  says,  a  notion  of 
the  tediousness  of  the  method.  No  doubt  anyone  who  has 
followed  me  hitherto,  will  consider  that  this  point  has  been 
b.  ought  out  already  with  sufficient  distinctness. 

§  21.  When  we  compare  Ratke's  method  with  Ascham's, 
we  find  several  points  of  agreement.  Ratke  would  begin 
the  study  of  a  language  by  taking  a  model  book,  and  work- 
ing through  it  with  the  pupil  a  great  many  times.  Ascham 
did  the  same.  Each  lecture  according  to  his  plan  would 
be  gone  over  "a  dozen  times  at  the  least."  Both  construed 
to  the  pupil  instead  of  requiring  him  to  make  out  the  sense 
for  himself.  Both  Ratke  and  Ascham  taught  grammar  not 
by  itself,  but  in  connection  with  the  model  book. 

But  the  points  of  difference  are  still  more  striking.  In 
one  respect  Ratke's  plan  was  weak.  It  gave  the  pupils 
little  to  do,  and  made  no  use  of  the  pen.  Ascham's  was 
better  in  this  and  also  as  a  training  in  accuracy.  Ascham 
was,  as  I  have  pointed  out,  a  "complete  retainer."  Ratke 
was  a  "  rapid  impressionist."  His  system  was  a  good  deal 
like  that  which  had  great  vogue  in  the  early  part  of  this 
century  as  the  "  Hamiltonian  System."  From  the  first  the 
language  was  to  be  laid  on  "  very  thick,"  in  the  belief  that 
"  some  of  it  was  sure  to  stick."  The  impressions  would  be 
slight,  and  there  would  at  first  be  much  confusion  between 
words  which  had  a  superficial  resemblance,  but  accuracy 
it  was  thought  would  come  in  time. 

§  22.  The  contest  between  the  two  schools  of  thought 
of  which  Ascham  and  Ratke  may  be  taken  as  representatives 


1 1 8  RATICHIUS. 


Slow  progress  in  methods. 


has  continued  till  now,  and  within  the  last  few  years  both 
parties  have  made  great  advances  in  method.  But  in 
nothing  does  progress  seem  slower  than  in  education ;  and 
the  plan  of  grammar-teaching  in  vogue  fifty  years  ago  was 
inferior  to  the  methods  advocated  by  the  old  writers.* 


*  See  Mr.  E.  E.  Bowen's  vigorous  essay  on  "  Teaching  by  means  of 
Grammar,"  in  Essays  on  a  Liheral  Education^  1867. 

I  have  returned  to  the  subject  of  language-learning  in  §  15  of  Jacotot 
in  tlie  note.    See  page  426. 


X. 

COMENIUS 

(1592-1671). 


§  1.  One  of  the  most  hopeful  signs  of  the  improvement 
of  education  is  the  rapid  advance  in  the  last  thirty  years  of 
the  fame  of  Comenius,  and  the  growth  of  a  large  literature 
about  the  man  and  his  ideas.  Twenty-three  years  ago,  when 
I  first  became  interested  in  him,  his  name  was  hardly  known 
beyond  Germany.  In  English  there  was  indeed  an  ex- 
cellent life  of  him  prefixed  to  a  translation  of  his  School  of 
Infancy ;  but  this  work,  by  Daniel  Benham  (London,  1858), 
had  not  then,  and  has  not  now,  anything  like  the  circulation  it 
deserves.  A  much  more  successful  book  has  been  Professor 
S,  S.  Laurie's  John  Amos  Comenius  (Cambridge  University 
Press),  and  this  is  known  to  most,  and  should  be  to  all, 
English  students  of  education.  By  the  Germans  and 
French  Comenius  is  now  recognised  as  \  the  man  who  first 
treated  education  in  a  scientific  spirit,  and  who  bequeathed 
the  rudiments  of  a  science  to  later  ages.  On  this  account 
the  great  library  of  pedagogy  at  Leipzig  has  been  named  in 
his  honour  the  "  Comenius  Stiftung." 

§  2.  John  Amos  Komensky  or  Comenius,  the  son  of  a 
miller,  who  belonged  to  the  Moravian  Brethren,  was  born. 


120  COMENIUS. 


Early  years.    His  first  book. 


at  the  Moravian  village  of  Niwnic,  in  1592.  Of  his  early 
life  we  know  nothing  but  what  he  himself  tells  us  in  the 
following  passage  : — "Losing  both  my  parents  while  I  was 
yet  a  child,  I  began,  through  the  neglect  of  my  guardians, 
but  at  sixteen  years  of  age  to  taste  of  the  Latin  tongue. 
Yet  by  the  goodness  of  God,  that  taste  bred  such  a  thirst 
in  me,  that  I  ceased  not  from  that  rime,  by  all  means  and 
endeavours,  to  labour  {or  the  repainng  of  my  lost  years; 
and  now  not  only  for  myself,  but  for  the  good  of  others 
also.  ;  For  I  could  not  but  pity  others  also  in  this  respect, 
especially  in  my  own  nation,  which  is  too  slothful  and 
careless  in  matter  of  learning.  Thereupon  I  was  continually 
full  of  thoughts  for  the  finding  out  of  some  means  whereby 
more  might  be  inflamed  with  the  love  of  learning,  and 
whereby  learning  itself  might  be  made  more  compendious, 
both  in  matter  of  the  charge  and  cost,  and  of  the  labour 
belonging  thereto,  that  so  the  youth  might  be  brought  by 
a  more  easy  method,  unto  some  notable  proficiency  in 
learning."*  With  these  thoughts  in  his  head,  he  pursued 
his  studies  in  several  German  towns,  especially  at  Herborn 
in  Nassau.  Here  he  saw  the  Report  on  Ratke's  method,' i^^T'^Jj 
published  in  161 2  for  the  Universities  of  Jena  and  Giessen; 
and  we  find  him  shortly  afterwards  writing  his  first  book, 
GrammaticcB  facilioris  Prcecepta,  which  was  published  at 
Prag  in  16 16.  On  his  return  to  Moravia,  he  was  appointed 
to  the  Brethren's  school  at  Prerau,  but  (to  use  his  own 
words)  "  being  shortly  after  at  the  age  of  twenty-four  called 
to  the  service  of  the  Church,  because  that  divine  function 
challenged  all  my  endeavours  (divinumque  HOC  AGE  prae 


*  Preface  to  the  Prodromus, 


COMENIUS.  121 


Troubles.    Exile. 


oculis  erat)  these  scholastic  cares  were  laid  aside.*  His 
pastoral  charge  was  at  Fulneck,  the  headquarters  of  the 
Brethren.  As  such  it  soon  felt  the  effects  of  the  Battle  ol 
Prag,  being  in  the  following  year  (162 1)  taken  and 
plundered  by  the  Spaniards.  On  this  occasion  Comenius 
lost  his  MSS.  and  almost  everything  he  possessed.  The 
year  after  his  wife  died,  and  then  his  only  child.  In  1624 
all  Protestant  ministers  were  banished,  and  in  1627  a  new 
decree  extended  the  banishment  to  Protestants  of  every 
description.  Comenius  bore  up  against  wave  after  wave 
of  calamity  with  Christian  courage  and  resignation,  and 
his  writings  at  this  period  were  of  great  value  to  his  fellow- 
sufferers. 

§  3.  For  a  time  he  found  a  hiding-place  in  the  family 
of  a  Bohemian  nobleman.  Baron  Sadowsky,  at  Slaupna,  in 
the  Bohemian  mountains,  and  in  this  retirement,  his  atten- 
tion was  again  directed  to  the  science  of  teaching.  The 
Baron  had  engaged  Stadius,  one  of  the  proscribed,  to 
educate  his  three  sons,  and,  at  Stadius'  request,  Comenius 
wrote  "  some  canons  of  a  better  method,"  for  his  use.  We 
find  him,  too,  endeavouring  to  enrich  the  literature  of  his 
mother-tongue,  making  a  metrical  translation  of  the  Psalms 
of  David,  and  even  writing  imitations  of  Virgil,  Ovid,  and 
Cato's  Distichs. 

In  1627,  however,  the  persecution  waxed  so  hot,  that 
Comenius,  with  most  of  the  Brethren,  had  to  flee  their 
country,  never  to  return.  On  crossing  the  border,  Comenius 
and  the   exiles   who   accompanied  him    knelt  down,  and 


*  Preface  to  Prodromus,  first  edition,  p.  40;  second  edition  (1639), 
p.  78.  The  above  is  Hartlib's  translation,  see  A  Reformation  of 
Schools,  &'€.,  pp.  46,  47. 


122  COMENIUS. 


Pedagogic  studies  at  Leszna. 


prayed  that  God  would  not  suffer  His  truth  to  fail  out  of 
their  native  land. 

§  4.  Comenius  had  now,  as  Michelet  says,  lost  his  country 
and  found  his  country,  which  was  the  world.  Many  of  the 
banished,  and  Comenius  among  them,  settled  at  the  ^olish^ 
town  of  Leszna,  or,  as  the  Germans  call  it,  Lissa,  near  the 
Silesian  frontier.  Here  there  was  an  old-established  school 
of  the  Brethren,  in  which  Comenius  found  employment. 
Once  more  engaged  in  education,  he  earnestly  set  about 
improving  the  traditional  methods.  As  he  himself  says,* 
"Being  by  God's  permission  banished  my  country  with 
divers  others,  and  forced  for  my  sustenance  to  apply  myself 
to  the  instruction  of  youth,  I  gave  my  mind  to  the  perusal  of 
divers  authors,  and  lighted  upon  many  which  in  this  age  have 
made  a  beginning  in  reforming  the  method  of  studies,  as 
Ratichius,  Helvicus,  Rhenius,  Ritterus,  Glaumius,  Csecilius, 
and  who  indeed  should  have  had  the  first  place,  Joannes 
Valentinus  Andreae,  a  man  of  a  nimble  and  clear  brain ; 
as  also  Campanella  and  the  Lord  Verulam,  those  famous 
restorers  of  philosophy ; — by  reading  of  whom  I  was  raised 
in  good  hope,  that  at  last  those  so  many  various  sparks 
would  conspire  into  a  flame ;  yet  observing  here  and  there 
some  defects  and  gaps  as  it  were,  I  could  not  contain 
myself  from  attempting  something  that  might  rest  upon  an 
immovable  foundation,  and  which,  if  it  could  be  once  found 
out,  should  not  be  subject  to  any  ruin.  Therefore,  after 
many  workings  and  tossings  of  my  thoughts,  by  reducing 
everything  to  the  immovable  laws  of  Nature,  I  lighted  upon 


•  Prefece  to  Prodromi*s,  first  edition,  p.  40 ;  second  edition,  p.  79. 
A  Reformation,  dfc,  p.  47. 


COMENIUS.  123 


Didactic  written.    Janua  published.    Pansophy. 

my  Didactica  Magna,  which  shows  the  art  of  readily  and 
soHdly  teaching  all  men  all  things." 

§  5.  This  work  did  not  immediately  see  the  light,  but 
in(^63i  Comenius  published  a  book  which  made  him  and 
theHttle  Polish  town  where  he  lived  known  throughout 
Europe  and  beyond  it.  This  was  the  Janua  Linguarutn 
Reserata,  or  "  Gate  of  Tongues  unlocked."  Writing  about 
it  many  years  afterwards  he  says  that  he  never  could  have 
imagined  that  that  little  work,  fitted  only  for  children  {puerile 
istud  opusculum),  would  have  been  received  with  applause 
by  all  the  learned  world.  Letters  of  congratulation  came 
to  him  from  every  quarter ;  and  the  work  was  translated 
not  only  into  Greek,  Bohemian,  Polish,  Swedish,  Belgian, 
English,  French,  Spanish,  Italian,  Hungarian,  but  also  into 
Turkish,  Arabic,  Persian,  and  even  "  Mongolian,  which  is 
familiar  to  all  the  East  Indies."  (Dedication  of  Schola 
Ludus  in  vol.  i.  of  collected  works.) 

§  6.  Incited  by  the  applause  of  the  learned,  Comenius 
now  planned  a  scheme  of  universal  knowledge,  to  impait 
which  a  series  of  works  would  have  to  be  written,  far 
exceeding  what  the  resources  and  industry  of  one  man, 
however  great  a  scholar,  could  produce.  He  therefore 
looked  about  for  a  patron  to  supply  money  for  the  support  "p , 
of  himself  and  his  assistants,  whilst  these  works  were  in 
progress.  *'  The  vastness  of  the  labours  I  contemplate," 
he  writes  to  a  Polish  nobleman,  "  demands  that  I  should 
have  a  wealthy  patron,  whether  we  look  at  their  extent,  or 
at  the  necessity  of  securing  assistants,  or  at  the  expenses 
generally." 

§  7.  At  Leszna  there  seemed  no  prospect  of  his  ob- 
taining the  aid  he  required  ;  but  his  fame  now  procured  him 
invitations  from  distant  countries.     First  he  received  a  call 


124  COMENIUS. 


Samuel  Hartlib. 


to  improve  the  schools  of  Sweden.  After  dedining  this 
he  was  induced  by  his  English  friends  to  undertake  a 
journey  to  London,  where  Parliament  had  shown  its  interest 
in  the  matter  of  education,  and  had  employed  Hartlib,*  an 
enthusiastic  admirer  of  Comenius,  to  attempt  a  reform. 
Probably  through  his  family  connections,  Hartlib  was  on 
intimate  terms  with  Comenius,  and  he  had  much  influence 


*  Very  interesting  are  the  "  immeasurable  labours  and  intellectual 
efforts"  of  Master  Samuel  Hartlib,  whom  Milton  addresses  as  "  a  person 
sent  hither  by  some  good  providence  from  a  far  country,  to  be  the 
occasion  and  incitement  of  great  good  to  this  island."  (^Of  Education, 
A.D.  1644.)  See  Masson'sZ?/^  ^i^^'/^i'w,  vol.  iii;  also  biographical  and 
bibliographical  account  of  Hartlib  by  H.  Dircks,  1865.  Hartlib's 
mother  was  English.  H  is  father,  when  driven  out  of  Poland  by  triumph 
of  the  Jesuits,  settledat  Elbing,  where  there  was  an  English"  Company  of 
Merchants "  with  John  Dury  for  their  chaplain.  Hartlib  came  to 
England  not  later  than  1628,  and  devoted  himself  to  the  furtherance  of  a 
variety  of  schemes  for  the  public  good.  He  was  one  of  those  rare 
beings  who  labour  to  promote  the  schemes  of  others  as  if  they  were  their 
own.  He  could,  as  he  says,  "  contribute  but  little  "  himself,  but  "  being 
carried  forth  to  watch  for  the  opportunities  of  provoking  others,  who 
can  do  more,  to  improve  their  talents,  I  have  found  experimentally  that 
my  endeavours  have  not  been  without  effect. "  (Quoted  by  Dircks,  p. 
66.)  The  philosophy  of  Bacon  seemed  to  have  introduced  an  age  of 
boundless  improvement ;  and  men  like  Comenius,  Hartlib,  Petty,  and 
Dury,  caught  the  first  unchecked  enthusiasm.  "  There  is  scarce  one 
day,"  so  Hartlib  wrote  to  Robert  Boyle,  "and  one  hour  of  the  day  or 
night,  being  brim  full  with  all  manner  of  objects  of  the  most  public  and 
universal  nature,  but  my  soul  is  crying  out  '  Phosphore  redde  diem  1 
Quid  gaudia  nostra  moraris  ?     Phosphore  redde  diem  !' " 

But  in  this  world  Hartlib  looked  in  vain  for  the  day.  The  income  of 
;^300  a  year  allowed  him  by  Parliament  was  ;^700  in  arrears  at  the 
Restoration,  and  he  had  then  nothing  to  hope.  His  last  years  were 
attended  by  much  physical  suffering  and  by  extreme  poverty.  He  died 
IS  Evelyn  thought  at  Oxford  in  1662,  but  this  is  uncertain. 


COMENIUS.  125 


The  Prodromus  and  Dilucidatio. 

on  his  career.  It  would  seem  that  Comenius,  though 
never  tired  of  forming  magnificent  schemes,  hung  back  from 
putting  anything  into  a  definite  shape.  After  the  appear- 
a:ice  oi  iht  /anua  Linguarum  Reserata,  he  planned  Si/anua 
Rerum,  and  even  allowed  that  title  to  appear  in  "the  list 
of  new  books  to  come  forth  at  the  next  Mart  at  Frankford."* 
But  again  he  hesitated,  and  withdrew  the  announcement. 
Here  Hartlib  came  in,  and  forced  him  into  print  without 
his  intending  or  even  knowing  it  ("  praeter  meam  spem  at 
me  inconsulto";  preface  to  Conatuum  Pansophicorum 
Dilucidatio,  1638).  Hartlib  begged  of  Comenius  a  sketch 
of  his  great  scheme,  and  with  apologies  to  the  author  for 
not  awaiting  his  consent,  he  published  it  at  Oxford  in  1637, 
under  the  title  of  Conatuum  Comenianorum  Prcefudia. 
Comenius  accepted  t\\efait  accompli  with  the  best  grace  he 
could — pleased  at  the  stir  the  book  made  in  the  learned 
world,  but  galled  by  criticisms,  especially  by  doubts  of  his 
orthodoxy.  To  refute  the  cavillers,  he  wrote  a  tract  called 
Conatuum  Pansophicorum  Dilucidatio  which  was  published 
in  1638.  In  1639  Hartlib  issued  in  London  a  new  duo- 
decimo edition  of  the  PrcBludia  (or  as  he  then  called  it, 
Prodromus)  and  the  Dilucidatio,  adding  a  dissertation  by 
Comenius  on  the  study  of  Latin.  Now,  when  everything 
seemed  ripe  for  a  change  in  education,  and  Comenius 
himself  was  on  his  way  to  England,  Hartlib  translated  the 
Prodromus,  and  when  Comenius  had  come  he  published  it 
with  the  title,  A  Reformation  of  Schools,  1642.+ 
§  8.  It    was    no    doubt    by    Hartlib's     influence    that 


•  Dilucidatio,  Hartlib's  trans. ,  p.  65. 

t  The  Dilucidation,  as  he  calls  it,  is  added.     All  the  books  above 
mentioned  are  in  the  Library  of  the  British  Museum  under  Komensiy* 
II 


126  COMENIUS. 


C.  in  London.    Parliamentary  schemes. 

Parliament  had  been  led  to  summon  Comenius,  and  at  any 
other  time  the  visit  might  have  been  "the  occasion  of  gi'eat 
good  to  this  island,"  but  inter  arma  silent  tnagistriy  and 
Comenius  went  away  again.  This  is  the  account  he  himself 
has  left  us  : — 

"  When  seriously  proposing  to  abandon  the  thorny  studies 
of  Didactics,  and  pass  on  to  the  pleasing  studies  of  philo- 
sophical truth,  I  find  myself  again  among  the  same  thorns. 
.  .  .  After  the  Pansophice  Prodromus  had  been  published 
and  dispersed  through  various  kingdoms  of  Europe,  many 
of  the  learned  approved  of  the  object  and  plan  of  the  work, 
but  despaired  of  its  ever  being  accomplished  by  one  man 
alone,  and  therefore  advised  that  a  college  of  learned  men 
should  be  instituted  to  carry  it  into  effect.  Mr.  S.  Hartlib, 
who  had  forwarded  the  publication  of  the  Pansophia  Pro- 
dromus in  England,  laboured  earnestly  in  this  matter,  and 
endeavoured,  by  every  possible  means,  to  bring  together  for 
this  purpose  a  number  of  men  of  intellectual  activity.  And 
at  length,  having  found  one  or  two,  he  invited  me  also,  with 
many  very  strong  entreaties.  My  people  having  consented 
to  the  journey,  I  came  to  London  on  the  very  day  of  the 
autumnal  equinox  (September  22,  1641),  and  there  at 
last  learnt  that  I  had  been  invited  by  the  order  of  the 
Parliament  But  as  the  Parliament,  the  King  having  then 
gone  to  Scotland  [August  10],  was  dismissed  for  a  three 
months'  recess  [not  quite  three  months,  but  from  Septembei 
9  to  October  20],  I  was  detained  there  through  the 
winter,  my  friends  mustering  what  pansophic  apparatus  they 
could,  though  it  was  but  slender.  .  .  .  The  Parliament 
meanwhile,  having  re-assembled,  and  our  presence  being 
known,  I  had  orders  to  wait  until  they  should  have  sufficient 
leisure  from  other  business  to  appoint  a  Commission  of 


COMENIUS,  127 


C.  driven  away  by  Civil  War. 


learned  and  wise  men  from  their  body  for  hearing  us  and 
considering  the  grounds  of  our  design.  They  communicated 
also  beforehand  their  thoughts  of  assigning  to  us  some 
college  with  its  revenues,  whereby  a  certain  number  of 
learned  and  industrious  men  called  from  all  nations  might 
i)e  honourably  maintained,  either  for  a  term  of  years  or  in 
perpetuity  There  was  even  named  for  the  purpose  The 
Savoy  in  London  j  WincJiester  College  out  of  London  was 
named;  and  again  nearer  the  city,  Chelsea  College,  inven- 
tories of  which  and  of  its  revenues  were  communicated  to 
us,  so  that  nothing  seemed  more  certain  than  that  the 
design  of  the  great  Verulam,  concerning  the  opening  some- 
where of  a  Universal  College,  devoted  to  the  advancement 
of  the  Sciences  could  be  carried  out.  But  the  rumour  of 
the  Insurrection  in  Ireland,  and  of  the  massacre  in  one 
night  of  more  than  200,000  English  [October,  November], 
and  the  sudden  departure  of  the  King  from  London 
[January  10,  1641-2],  and  the  plentiful  signs  of  the  bloody 
war  about  to  break  out  disturbed  these  plans,  and  obliged 
me  to  hasten  my  return  to  my  own  people."* 

§  9.  While  Comenius  was  in  England,  where  he  stayed 
till  August,  1642,  he  received  an  invitation  to  France. 
This  invitation,  which  he  did  not  accept,  came  perhaps 
through  his  correspondent  Mersenne,  a  man  of  great  learning, 
who  is  said  to  have  been  highly  esteemed  and  often  con- 
sulted by  Descartes.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  state  of 
opinion  in  such  matters  in  those  days,  that  Mersenne  tells 
Comenius  of  a  certain  Le  Maire,  by  whose  method  a  boy 
of  six  years  old,  might,  with  nine  months'  instruction, 
acquire  a  perfect  knowledge  of  three  languages.     Mersenne 

•  Masson's  Milton,  vol.  iii,  p.  224,  Prof.  Masson  is  quoting  Opera 
Didactica,  torn,  ii,  Introd. 


128  COMENIUS. 


In  Sweden.    Interviews  with  Oxenstiern. 

also  had  dreams  of  a  universal  alphabet,  and  even  of  a 
universal  language. 

§  lo.  Comenius'  hopes  of  assistance  in  England  being 
at  an  end,  he  thought  of  returning  to  Leszna ;  but  a  lettei 
now  reached  him  from  a  rich  Dutch  merchant,  Lewis  de 

fGeer,  who  offered  him  a  home  and  means  for  carrying  out 
his  plans.  This  Lewis  de  Geer,  "  the  Grand  Almoner  of 
Europe,"  as  Comenius  calls  him,  displayed  a  princely 
munificence  in  the  assistance  he  gave  the  exiled  Protestants. 
At  this  time  he  was  living  at  Nordcoping  in  Sweden. 
Comenius  having  now  found  such  a  patron  as  he  was 
seeking,  set  out  from  England  and  joined  him  there. 

§  II.  Soon  after  the  arrival  of  Comenius  in  Sweden, 
the  gieat  Oxenstiern  sent  for  him  to  Stockholm,  and  with 
John  Skyte,  the  Chancellor  of  Upsal  University,  examined 
him  and  his  system.  "These  two,"  as  Comenius  says, 
"exercised  me  in  colloquy  for  four  days,  and  chiefly 
the  most  illustrious  Oxenstiern,  that  eagle  of  the  North 
{Aquila  Aquilonius).  He  inquired  into  the  foundations  of 
both  my  schemes,  the  Didactic  and  the  Pansophic,  so 
searchingly,  that  it  was  unlike  anything  that  had  been  done 
before  by  any  of  my  learned  critics.  In  the  first  two  days 
he  examined  the  Didactics,  and  finally  said :  '  From  an 
early  age  I  perceived  that  our  Method  of  Studies  generally 
in  use  is  a  harsh  and  crude  one  (violentum  quiddani),  but 
where  the  thing  stuck  I  could  not  find  out.  At  length, 
having  been  sent  by  my  King  of  glorious  memory  [/>.,  by 
Gustavus  Adolphus],  as  ambassador  into  Germany,  I  con- 
versed on  the  subject  with  various  learned  men.  And 
when  I  had  heard  that  Wolfgang  Ratichius  was  toiling  at 
an  amended  Method  I  had  no  rest  of  mind  till  I  had  him 
before  me,  but  instead  of  talking  on  the  subject,  he  pui 


COMENIUS.  129 


Oxenstiern  criticises. 


into  my  hands  a  big  quarto  volume.  I  swallowed  this 
trouble,  and  having  turned  over  the  whole  book,  I  saw  that 
he  had  detected  well  enough  the  maladies  of  our  schools 
Jjutjhe  remedies  he  proposed  did  not  seem  to  me  sufficient. 
V'ours,  Mr,  Comenius,  rest  on  firmer  foundations.  Go  on 
with  the  work.'  I  answered  that  I  had  done  all  I  could  in 
those  matters,  and  must  now  go  on  to  others.  '  I  know,' 
said  he,  '  that  you  are  toiling  at  greater  affairs,  for  I  have 
read  your  Prodromus  Pajisophice.  That  we  will  discuss 
to-morrow,  I  must  now  to  public  business.'  Next  day  he 
began  on  my  Pansophic  attempts,  and  examined  them  with 
still  greater  severity.  *  Are  you  a  man,'  he  asked,  '  who 
can  bear  contradiction ?'  'I  can,'  said  I,  'and  for  that 
reason  my  Prodromus  or  preliminary  sketch  was  sent  out 
first  (not  indeed  that  I  sent  it  out  myself,  this  was  done  by 
friends),  that  it  might  meet  with  criticism.  And  if  we  seek 
the  criticism  of  all  and  sundry,  how  much  more  from  men 
of  mature  wisdom  and  heroic  reason?'  He  began  accor- 
dingly to  discourse  against  the  hope  of  a  better  state  of 
things  arising  from  a  rightly  instituted  study  of  Pansophia  j 
first,  objecting  political  reasons,  then  what  was  said  in 
Scripture  about  '  the  last  times.'  All  which  objections  I 
so  answered  that  he  ended  with  these  words :  '  Into  no 
one's  mind  do  I  think  such  things  have  come  before. 
Str.nd  upon  these  grounds  of  yours ;  so  shall  we  some  time 
conie  to  agreement,  or  there  will  be  no  way  left.  My  advice,' 
bowever,'  added  he,  'is  that  you  first  do  something  for  the 
s»;hools,  and  bring  the  study  of  the  Latin  tongue  to  a  greater 
facility;  thus  you  will  prepare  the  way  for  those  greater 
matters.' "  As  Skyte  and  afterwards  De  Geer  gave  the  same 
advice,  Comenius  felt  himself  constrained  to  follow  it;  so  he 
agreed  to  settle  at  Elbing,  in  Prussia,  and  there  write  a  work 


130  COMENIUS. 

Comenius  at  Elbing. 


I 


on  teaching,  in  which  the  principles  of  the  Didactica  Magna 
should  be  worked  out  with  especial  reference  to  teaching 
languages.  Notwithstanding  the  remonstrances  cf  his 
English  friends,  to  which  Comenius  would  gladly  have 
listened,  he  was  kept  by  Oxenstiern  and  De  Geer  strictly  to 
his  agreement,  and  thus,  much  against  his  will,  he  was  held 
fast  for  eight  years  in  what  he  calls  the  "  miry  entanglements 
of  logomachy." 

§  12.  Elbing,  where,  after  a  journey  to  Leszna  to  fetch 
his  family  (for  he  had  married  again),  Comenius  now 
settled,  is  in  West  Prussia,  thirty-six  miles  south-east  of 
Dantzic.  From  1577  to  1660  an  English  trading  company 
was  settled  here,  with  which  the  family  of  Hartlib  was 
connected.  This  perhaps  was  one  reason  why  Comenius 
chose  this  town  for  his  residence.  But  although  he  had 
a  grant  of  ;^3oo  a  year  from  Parliament,  Hartlib,  instead 
of  assisting  with  money,  seems  at  this  time  to  have  himself 
needed  assistance,  for  in  October,  1642,  Comenius  writes 
to  De  Geer  that  he  fears  Fundanius  and  Hartlib  are  suffer- 
ing from  want,  and  that  he  intends  for  them  ;!^20o  promised 
by  the  London  booksellers ;  he  suggests  that  De  Geer  shall 
give  them  ;^3o  each  meanwhile.     (Benham,  p.  63.) 

§  13.  The  relation  between  Comenius  and  his  patron 
naturally  proved  a  difficult  one.  The  Dutchman  thought 
that  as  he  supported  Comenius,  and  contributed  something 
more  for  the  assistants,  he  might  expect  of  Comenius  that 
he  would  devote  all  his  time  to  the  scholastic  treatise  he 
had  undertaken.  Comenius,  however,  was  a  man  of 
immense  energy  and  of  widely  extended  sympathies  and 
connections.  He  was  a  "  Bishop  "  of  the  religious  body  to 
which  he  belonged,  and  in  this  capacity  he  engaged  in  con- 
troversy, and  attended  some  religious  conferences.      Then 


COMENIUS.  131 


At  Leszna  again. 


again,  pupils  were  pressed  upon  him,  and  as  money  to  pay 
five  writers  whom  he  kept  at  work  was  always  running  short, 
he  did  not  decline  them.  De  Geer  complained  of  this,  and 
supplies  were  not  furnished  with  wonted  regularity.  In 
1647  Comenius  writes  to  Hartlib  that  he  is  almost  over- 
whelmed with  cares,  and  sick  to  death  of  writing  begging- 
letters.  Yet  in  this  year  he  found  means  to  publish  a  book 
On  the  Causes  of  this  [i.e.,  the  Thirty  Years)  War,  in 
which  the  Roman  Catholics  are  attacked  with  great  bitter- 
ness— a  bitterness  for  which  the  position  of  the  writer  affords 
too  good  an  excuse. 

§  14.  The  year  1648  brought  with  it  the  downfall  of  all 
Comenius'  hopes  of  returning  to  his  native  land.  The 
Peace  of  Westphalia  was  concluded  without  any  provision 
being  made  for  the  restoration  of  the  exiles.  But  though 
thus  doomed  to  pass  the  remaining  years  of  his  life  in 
banishment,  Comenius,  in  this  year,  seemed  to  have  found 
an  escape  from  all  his  pecuniary  difficulties.  The  Senior 
.^shop,  the  head  of  the  Moravian  Brethren,  died,  and 
Comenius  was  chosen  to  succeed  him.  In  consequence 
of  this,  Comenius  returned  to  Leszna,  where  due  provision 
was  made  for  him  by  the  Brethren.  Before  he  left  Elbing, 
however,  the  fruit  of  his  residence  there,  the  Methodus 
Linguarum  Novissima,  had  been  submitted  to  a  commission 
of  learned  Swedes,  and  approved  of  by  them.  The  MS. 
went  with  him  to  Leszna,  where  it  was  publislied. 

§  15.  As  head  of  the  Moravian  Church,  there  now  de- 
volved upon  Comenius  the  care  of  all  the  exiles,  and  his 
widespread  reputation  enabled  him  to  get  situations  for 
many  of  them  in  all  Protestant  countries.  But  he  was 
now  so  much  connected  with  the  science  of  education,  that 
even  his  post  at  Leszna  did  not  prevent  his  receiving  and 


132  COMENIUS. 


Saros-Patak.    Flight  from  Leszna. 

accepting  a  call  to  reform  the  schools  in  Transylvania.  A 
model  .school  was  formed  at  Saros-Patak,  where  there  was 
a  settlement  of  the  banished  Brethren,  and  in  this  school 
Comenius  laboured  from  1650  till  1654.  At  this  time  he 
wrote  his  most  celebrated  book,  which  is  indeed  only  an 
abridgment  of  his  Janna  with  the  important  addition  of 
pictures,  and  sent  it  to  Niirnberg,  where  it  appeared  three 
years  later  (1657).     This  was  the  famous  Orbis  Pictus. 

§  16.  Full  of  trouble  as  Comenius'  life  had  hitherto 
been,  its  greatest  calamity  was  still  before  him.  After  he 
was  again  settled  at  Leszna,  Poland  was  invaded  by  the 
Swedes,  on  which  occasion  the  sympathies  of  the  Brethren 
were  with  their  fellow-Protestants,  and  Comenius  was 
imprudent  enough  to  write  a  congratulatory  address  to 
the  Swedish  King.  A  peace  followed,  by  the  terms  of 
which,  several  towns,  and  Leszna  among  them,  were  made 
over  to  Sweden ;  but  when  the  King  withdrew,  the  Poles 
took  up  arms  again,  and  Leszna,  the  headquarters  of  the 
Protestants,  the  town  in  which  the  chief  of  the  Moravian 
Brethren  had  written  his  address  welcoming  the  enemy, 
was  taken  and  plundered. 

Comenius  and  his  family  escaped,  but  his  house  was 
marked  for  special  violence,  and  nothing  was  preserved. 
His  sole  remaining  possessions  were  the  clothes  in  which 
he  and  his  family  travelled.  All  his  books  and  manuscripts 
were  burnt,  among  them  his  valued  work  on  Pansophia, 
[and  a  Latin-Bohemian  and  Bohemian-Latin  Dictionary, 
giving  words,  phrases,  idioms,  adages,  and  aphorisms — a 
book  on  which  he  had  been  labouring  for  forty  years. 
♦'  This  loss,"  he  writes,  "  I  shall  cease  to  lament  only  when 
]  cease  to  breathe." 

§  17.  After  wandering   for  some  time  about   Germany, 


COMENIUS.  133 

Last  years  at  Amsterdam. 

and  being  prostrated  by  fever  at  Hamburg,  he  at  length 
came  to  Amsterdam,  where  Lawrence  De  Geer,  tlxe  son 
of  his  deceased  patron,  gave  him  an  asylum.  Here  were 
spent  the  remaining  years  of  his  life  in  ease  and  dignity. 
Compassion  for  his  misfortunes  was  united  with  veneration 
for  his  learning  and  piety.  He  earned  a  sufficient  income 
by  giving  mstruction  in  the  famili^ojjthe  wealthyj  and  by 
the  liberality  of  De  Geer  he  was  enabled  to  publish  a 
fine  folio  edition  of  all  his  writings  on  Education  (1657). 
^Tlis  political  works,  however,  were  to  the  last  a  source  of 
trouble  to  him.  His  hostility  to  the  Pope  and  the  House 
of  Hapsburg  made  him  the  dupe  of  certain  "prophets" 
whose  soothsayings  he  published  as  Lux  in  Tenebris. 
One  of  these  prophets,  who  had  announced  that  the  Turk 
was  to  take  Vienna,  was  executed  at  Pressburg,  and  the 
Lux  in  Tenebris  at  the  same  time  burnt  by  the  hangman. 
Before  the  news  of  this  disgrace  reached  Amsterdam, 
Comenius  was  no  more.  He  died  in  the  year  1671,  at  the 
advanced  age  of  eighty,  and  with  him  terminated  the  office 
of  Chief  Bishop  among  the  Moravian  Brethren. 

§  18.  His  long  life  had  been  full  of  trouble,  and  he  saw 
little  of  the  improvements  he  so  earnestly  desired  and 
laboured  after,  but  he  continued  the  struggle  hopefully  to 
the  end.  In  his  seventy-seventh  year  he  wrote  these 
memorable  words:  *'I  thank  God  that  I  have  all  my  life 
been  a  man  of  aspirations.  .  .  .  For  the  longing  after  good, 
however  it  spring  up  in  the  heart,  is  always  a  rill  flowing 
from  the  Fountain  of  all  good — from  God."*     Labouring  in 


*  Unum  Necessarium,  quoted  by  Raumer. 

Compare  George  Eliot :     "By  desiring  what  is  perfectly  good,  even 
when  we  don't  quite  know  what  it  is,  and  cannot  do  what  we  would,  we 


134  COMENIUS. 


"1 


Comenius  sought  true  foundation. 

this  spirit  he  did  not  toil  in  vain,  and  the  historians  of 
education  have  agreed  in  ranking  him  among  the  most 
influential  as  well  as  the  most  noble-minded  of  the  Rer 
formers. 


f~  §  19.  Before  Comenius,  no  one  had  brought  the  mind 
of  a  philosopher  to  bear  practically  on  the  subject  of 
education.  Montaigne  and  Bacon  had  advanced  principles, 
leaving  others  to  see  to  their  application.  A  few  able  school- 
masters, Ascham,  e.g.,  had  investigated  new  methods,  but 
had  made  success  in  teaching  the  test  to  which  they 
appealed,  rather  than  any  abstract  principle.  Comenius 
was  at  once  a  philosopher  who  had  learnt  of  Bacon,  and 
a  schoolmaster  who  had  earned  his  livelihood  by  teaching 
the  rudiments.  Dissatisfied  with  the  state  of  education  as 
he  found  it,  he  sought  for  a  better  system  by  an  examination 
of  the  laws  of  Nature.  Whatever  is  thus  established  is 
indeed  on  an  immovable  foundation,  and,  as  Comenius 
himself  says,  "not  liable  to  any  ruin."  It  will  hardly  be 
disputed,  when  broadly  stated,  that  there  are  laws  of 
Nature  which  must  be  obeyed  in  dealing  with  the  mind, 
as  with  the  body.  No  doubt  these  laws  are  not  so  easily 
established  in  the  first  case  as  in  the  second,  nor  can  we 

L  find  them  without  much  "  groping "  and  some  mistakes ; 
but  whoever  in  any  way  assists  or  even  tries  to  assist  in 
the   discovery,  deserves   our  gratitude;    and    greatly  are 


are  part  of  the  Divine  power  against  evil— widening  the  skirts  of  light  and 
making  the  struggle  with  darkness  narrower." — MiddlemarcA,  bk.  iv, 
p.  308  of  first  edition. 


COMENIUS.  135 


Threefold  life.    Seeds  of  learning,  virtue,  piety. 

we  indebted  to  him  who  first  boldly  set  about  the  task,  and 
devoted  to  it  years  of  patient  labour. 

§  20.  Comenius  has  left  voluminous  Latin  writings. 
Professor  Laurie  gives  us  the  titles  of  the  books  connected  with 
education,  and  they  are  in  number  forty-two :  so  there  must 
be  much  repetition  and  indeed  retractation;  for  Comenius 
was  always  learning,  and  one  of  his  last  books  was  Ventilabrum 
Sapteniice,  sive  sapienter  sua  retractandi  Ars — /.^.,  "  Wisdom's 
Winnowing-machine,  or  the  Art  of  wisely  withdrawing  one's 
own  assertions."  We  owe  much  to  Professor  Laurie,  who 
has  served  as  a  ventilabrum  and  left  us  a  succinct  and  clear 
account  of  the  Reformer's  teaching.  I  have  read  little  of 
the  writings  of  Comenius  except  the  German  translation  of 
the  "Great  Didactic,"  from  which  the  following  is  taken. 

§  21.  We  live,  says  Comenius,  a  threefold  life — a 
vegetative,  an  animal,  and  an  intellectual  or  spiritual.  Of 
these,  the  first  is  perfect  in  the  womb,  the  last  in  heaven. 
He  is  happy  who  comes  with  healthy  body  into  the  world, 
much  more  he  who  goes  with  healthy  spirit  out  of  it. 
According  to  the  heavenly  idea,  man  should  (i)  know  all 
things ;  (2)  should  be  master  of  all  things,  and  of  himself; 
(3)  should  refer  everything  to  God.  So  that  within  us 
Nature  has  implanted  the  seeds  of  (i)  learning,  (2)  virtue, 
and  (3)  piety.  To  bring  these  seeds  to  maturity  is  the 
object  of  education.  All  men  require  education,  and  God 
has  made  children  unfit  for  other  employments  that  they 
may  have  leisure  to  learn. 

§  22.  But  schools  have  failed,  and  instead  of  keeping 
to  the  true  object  of  education,  and  teaching  the  foundations, 
relations,  and  intentions  of  all  the  most  important  things, 
they  have  neglected  even  the  mother  tongue,  and  confined 
the  teaching  to  Latin;   and  yet  that  has  been  so  badly 


136  COMENIUS. 

Omnia  sponte  fluant.    Analogies. 

taught,  and  so  much  time  has  been  wasted  over  grammar 
rules  and  dictionaries,  that  from  ten  to  twenty  years  are 
spent  in  acquiring  as  much  knowledge  of  Latin  as  is 
si>eedily  acquired  of  any  modern  tongue. 

§  23.  The  cause  of  this  want  of  success  is  that  the 
system  does  not  follow  Nature.  Everything  natural  goes 
smoothly  and  easily.  There  must  therefore  be  no  pressure.  \ 
Learning  should  come  to  children  as  swimming  to  fish,  1 
flying  to  birds,  running  to  animals.  As  Aristotle  says,  the 
desire  of  knowledge  is  implanted  in  man :  and  the  mind 
grows  as  the  body  does — by  taking  proper  nourishment, 
not  by  being  stretched  on  the  rack. 

§  24.  If  we  would  ascertain  how  teaching  and  learning 
are  to  have  good  results,  we  must  look  to  the  known 
processes  of  Nature  and  Art.  A  man  sows  seed,  and  it 
comes  up  he  knows  not  how,  but  in  sowing  it  he  must 
attend  to  the  requirements  of  Nature.  Let  us  then  look  to 
Nature  to  find  out  how  knowledge  takes  root  in  young 
minds.  We  find  that  Nature  waits  for  the  fit  time.  Then, 
too,  she  has  prepared  the  material  before  she  gives  it  form. 
In  our  teaching  we  constantly  run  counter  to  these  prin- 
ciples of  hers.  We  give  instruction  before  the  young  mands 
are  ready  to  receive  it.  We  give  the  form  before  the 
material.  Words  are  taught  before  the  things  to  which 
they  refer.  When  a  foreign  tongue  is  to  be  taught,  we 
comrnonly  give  the  foi-m,  i.e.,  the  grammatical  rules,  before 
we  give  the  material,  i.e.,  the  language,  to  which  the  rules 
apply.  We  should  begin  with  an  author,  or  properly 
prepared  translation-book,  and  abstract  rules  should  never 
come  before  the  examples. 

§  25.  Again,  Nature  begins  each  of  her  works  with  its 
inmost  part    Moreover,  the  crude  form  comes  first,  then 


^yMj'\,- 


COMENIUS.  137 


Analogies  of  growth. 


the  elaboration  of  the  parts.  The  architect,  acting  on  'this 
principle,  first  makes  a  rough  plan  or  model,  and  then  by 
degrees  designs  the  details ;  last  of  all  he  attends  to  the 
ornamentation.  In  teaching,  then,  let  the  inmost  part, 
i.e.,  the  understanding  of  the  subject,  come  first ;  then  let 
the  thing  understood  be  used  to  exercise  the  memory,  the 
speech,  and  the  hands;  and  let  every  language,  science, 
and  art  be  taught  first  in  its  rudimentary  outline;  then 
more  completely  with  examples  and  rules ;  finally,  with 
exceptions  and  anomalies.  Instead  of  this,  some  teachers 
are  foolish  enough  to  require  beginners  to  get  up  all  the 
anomalies  in  Latin  Grammar,  and  the  dialects  in  Greek. 

§  26.  Again,  as  Nature  does  nothing  per  saltupi,  nor 
halts  when  she  has  begun,  the  whole  course  of  studies 
should  be  arranged  in  strict  order,  so  that  the  earlier 
studies  prepare  the  way  for  the  later.  Every  year,  every 
month,  every  day  and  hour  even,  should  have  its  task 
marked  out  beforehand,  and  the  plan  should  be  rigidly 
carried  out.  Much  loss  is  occasioned  by  absence  of  boys 
from  school,  and  by  changes  in  the  instruction.  Iron  that 
might  be  wrought  with  one  heating  should  not  be  allowed 
to  get  cold,  and  be  heated  over  and  over  again. 

§  27.  Nature  protects  her  work  from  injurious  influences, 
so  boys  should  be  kept  from  injurious  companionships  and 
books. 

§  28.  In  a  chapter  devoted  to  the  principles  of  easy 
teaching,  Comenius  lays  down,  among  rules  similar  to  the 
foregoing,  that  children  will  learn  if  they  are  taught  only 
what  they  have  a  desire  to  learn,  with  due  regard  to  their 
age  and  the  method  of  instruction,  and  especially  when 
everything  is  first  taught  by  means  of  the  senses.  On  this 
point  Comenius  laid  great  stress,  and  he  was  the  first  who 


138  COMENIUS. 


Senses.    Foster  desire  of  knowledge. 

did  so.  Education  should  proceed,  he  said,  in  the  follow- 
ing order :  first,  educate  the  senses,  then  the  memory,  then 
the  intellect;  last  of  all  the  critical  faculty.  This  is  the 
order  of  Nature.  The  child  first  perceives  through  the 
senses.  ^^  Nihil  est  in  iniellectu  quod  non  prius  fuerit  in 
sensu.  Everything  in  the  intellect  must  have  come  through 
the  senses."  These  perceptions  are  stored  in  the  memory, 
and  called  up  by  the  imagination.*  By  comparing  one 
with  another,  the  understanding  forms  general  ideas,  and 
at  length  the  judgment  decides  between  the  false  and  the 
true.  By  keeping  to  this  order,  Comenius  believed  it 
would  be  possible  to  make  learning  entirely  pleasant  to  the 
pupils,  however  young.  Here  Comenius  went  even  further 
than  the  Jesuits.  They  wished  to  make  learning  pleasant, 
but  despaired  of  doing  this  except  by  external  influences, 
emulation  and  the  like.  Comenius  did  not  neglect  external 
means  to  make  the  road  to  learning  agreeable.  Like  the 
Jesuits,  he  would  have  short  school-hours,  and  would  make 
great  use  of  praise  and  blame,  but  he  did  not  depend,  as 
they  did  almost  exclusively,  on  emulation.  He  would  have 
the  desire  of  learning  fostered  in  every  possible  way — by 
parents,  by  teachers,  by  school  buildings  and  apparatus,  by 
the  subjects  themselves,  by  the  method  of  teaching  them, 
and  lastly,  by  the  public  authorities,  (i)  The  parents 
must  praise  learning  and  learned  men,  must  show  children 
beautiful  books,  &c.,  must  treat  the  teachers  with  great 
respect.  (2)  The  teacher  must  be  kind  and  fatheily,  he 
must  distribute  praise  and  reward,  and  must  always,  where 
it  is  possible,  give  the  children  something  to  look  at.  (3) 
The  school  buildings  must  be  light,  airy,  and  cheerful,  and 


*  Compare  Mulcaster,  supra,  p.  94. 


COMENIUS.  139 


No  punishments.    Words  and  things  together. 

well  furnished  with  apparatus,  as  pictures,  maps,  models, 
collections  of  specimens.  (4)  The  subjects  taught  must 
not  be  too  hard  for  the  learner's  comprehension,  and  the 
more  entertaining  parts  of  them  must  be  especially  dwelt 
upon.  (5)  The  method  must  be  natural,  and  everything 
that  is  not  essential  to  the  subject  or  is  beyond  the  pupil 
must  be  omitted.  Fables  and  allegories  should  be  intro- 
duced, and  enigmas  given  for  the  pupils  to  guess.  (6) 
The  authorities  must  appoint  publijL-examinations  and 
reward  merit. 

'    '%  29.  Nature    helps    herself  in   various    ways,    so    the 
pupils  should  have  every  assistance  given  them.     It  should 
especially  be  made  clear  what  J:he  pupils  are  to  learn,  and 
(how  they  should  learn  it. 

§  30.  The    pupils     should    be    punished    for    offences        / 
against  morals  only.     If  they,  do  not  learn,  the  fault  is  with       ■ 
the  teacher.  ^ 

§  31.  One  of  Comenius's  most  distinctive  principles 
was  that  there  should  no  longer  be  '■'•infelix  divortiutn 
rerum  et  verborum,  the  wretched  divorce  of  words  from 
things"  (the  phrase,  I  think,  is  Campanella's),  but  that  / 
knowledge  of  things  and  words  should  go  together.  This,  ' 
together  with  his  desire  of  submitting  everything  to  the 
pupil's  senses,  would  have  introduced  a  great  change  into 
the  course  of  instruction,  which  was  then,  as  it  has  for  the 
most  part  continued,  purely  literary.  We  should  learn,  says 
Comenius,  as  much  as  possible,  not  from  books,  but  from 
the  great  book  of  Nature,  from  heaven  and  earth,  from  oaks 
and  beeches.  , 

§  32.  When  languages  are  to  be  learnt,  he  would  have 
them  taught  separately.  Till  the  pupil  is  from  eight  to  ten 
years  old,  he  should  be  instructed   only  in  the  mother- 


O 


140  COMENIUS. 


Languages.    System  of  schools. 


tongue,  and  about  things.  Then  other  languages  can  be 
acquired  in  about  a  year  each;  Latin  (which  is  to  be 
St  idied  more  thoroughly)  in  about  two  years.  Et^eiy 
language  must  be  learnt  by  use  rather  than  by  rules,  />.,  it 
must  be  learnt  by  hearing,  reading  and  re-reading,  tran- 
scribing, attempting  imitations  in  writing  and  orally,  and 
by  using  the  language  in  conversation.  Rules  assist  and 
confirm  practice,  but  they  must  come  after,  not  before  it. 
The  first  exercises  in  a  language  should  take  for  their 
/  subject  something  of  which  the  sense  is  already  known,  so 
that  the  mind  may  be  fixed  on  the  words  and  their  connec- 
tions.* The  Catechism  and  Bible  History  may  be  used  for 
this  purpose. 

§  ^;i.  Considering  the  classical  authors  not  suited  to 
boys'  understanding,  and  not  fit  for  the  education  of 
Christians, .  Comeni us  proposed  writing  a  set  of  Latin 
/  manuals  for  the  difierent  stages  between  childhood  and 
manhood :  these  were  to  be  called  "  Vestibulum,"  "  Janua," 
"  Palatium"or  "Atrium,"  "Thesaurus."  The  "Vestibulum," 
"Janua,"  and  "  Atrium  "  were  really  carried  out. 

§  34.  In  Comenius's  scheme  there  were  to  be  four 
kinds  of  schools  for  a  perfect  educational  course :  —  ist, 
the  mother's  breast  for  infancy ;  2nd,  the  public  vernacular 
school  for  children,  to  which  all  should  be  sent  from  six 
years  old  till  twelve ;  3rd,  the  Latin  school  or  Gymnasium ; 
4th,  residence  at  a  University  and  travelling,  to  complete 
the  course.  The  public  schools  were  to  be  for  all  classes 
alike,  and  for  girlsf  as  well  as  boys. 

•  Comenius  here  follows  Ratke,  who,  as  I  have  mentioned  above 
(p.  116),  required  beginners  to  study  the  translation  de/ore  the  origutal. 

t  Professor  Masson  {Life  of  Milton,  vol.  iii,  p.  205,  note)  gives  us  the 
following  from  chap,  ix  (cols.  42-44),  of  the  Didactica  Magna :— 


COMENIUS.  141 


Mother-tongue  School.    Girls. 


§  35.  Most  boys  and  girls  in  every  community  would 
stop  at  the  vernacular  school ;  and  as  this  school  is  a  very 
distinctive  feature  in  Comenius's  plan,  it  may  be  worth  while 
to  give  his  programme  of  studies.  In  this  school  the  children 
should  learn — ist,  to  read  and  write  the  mother-tongue 
«/<?//,  both  with  writing  and  printing  letters;  2nd,  to  com- 
pose grammatically;  3rd,  to  cipher;  4th,  to  measure  and 
weigh;  5th,  to  sing,  at  first  popular  airs,  then  from  music; 
6th,  to  say  by  heart,  sacred  psalms  and  hymns ;  7th,  Cate- 
chism, Bible  History,  and  texts;  8th,  moral  rules,  with 
examples ;  9th,  economics  and  pohtics,  as  far  as  they  could 
be  understood;    loth,  general  history  of  the  world;   nth, 


"Nor,  to  say  something  particularly  on  this  subject,  can  any 
sufficient  reason  be  given  why  the  weaker  sex  \sequior  sexus,  literally 
the  later  or  following  sex,  is  his  phrase,  borrowed  from  Apuleius,  and, 
though  the  phrase  is  usually  translated  the  inferior  sex,  it  seems  to  have 
been  chosen  by  Comenius  to  avoid  that  implication]  should  be  wholly 
shut  out  from  liberal  studies  whether  in  the  native  tongue  or  in  Latin. 
For  equally  are  they  God's  im^e  ;  equally  are  they  partakers  of  grace, 
and  of  the  Kingdom  to  come ;  equally  are  they  furnished  with  minds 
agile  and  capable  of  wisdom,  yea,  often  beyond  our  sex ;  equally  to 
them  is  there  a  possibility  of  attaining  high  distinction,  inasmuch  as  they 
have  often  been  employed  by  God  Himself  lor  the  government  of  peoples, 
the  bestowing  of  wholesome  counsels  on  Kings  and  Princes,  the  science 
of  medicine  and  other  things  useful  to  the  human  race,  nay  even  the 
prophetical  office,  and  the  rattling  reprimand  of  Priests  and  Bishops 
[eliam  ad  propheticum  munus,  et  increpandos  Sacerdotes  Episcoposque, 
are  the  words ;  and  as  the  treatise  was  prepared  for  the  press  in  1638 
one  detects  a  reference,  by  the  Moravian  Brother  in  Poland  to  the 
recent  fame  of  Jenny  Geddes,  of  Scotland].  Why  then  should  we 
admit  them  to  the  alphabet,  but  afterwards  debar  them  from  books? 
Do  we  fear  their  rashness?  The  more  we  occupy  their  thoughts,  the 
less  room  will  there  be  in  them  for  rashness,  which  springs  generally 
from  vacuity  of  mind." 

12 


142  COMENIUS- 


School  teaching.    Mother's  teaching. 


figure  of  the  earth  and  motion  of  stars,  &c.,  physics  and 
geography,  especially  of  native  land;  12th,  general  know- 
ledge of  arts  and  handicrafts. 

§  36.  Each  school  was  to  be  divided  into  six  classes, 
corresponding  to  the  six  years  the  pupil  should  spend  in  it. 
The  hours  of  work  were  to  be,  in  school,  two  hours  in  the 
morning  and  two  in  the  afternoon,  with  nearly  the  same 
amount  of  private  study-  In  the  morning  the  mind  and 
memory  were  to  be  exercised,  in  the  afternoon  the  hands 
and  voice.  Each  class  was  to  have  its  proper  lesson-book 
written  expressly  for  it,  so  as  to  contain  everything  that 
class  had  to  learn.  When  a  lesson  was  to  be  got  by  heart 
from  the  book,  the  teacher  was  first  to  read  it  to  the  class, 
explain  it,  and  re-read  it ;  the  boys  then  to  read  it  aloud  by 
turns  till  one  of  them  offered  to  repeat  it  without  book; 
the  others  were  to  do  the  same  as  soon  as  they  were  able, 
till  all  had  repeated  it.  This  lesson  was  then  to  be  worked 
over  again  as  a  writing  lesson,  &c.  In  the  higher  forms  of 
the  vernacular  school  a  modem  language  was  to  be  taught 
and  duly  practised. 

§  37.  Here  we  see  a  regular  school  course  projected 
which  differed  essentially  from  the  only  complete  school 
course  still  earlier,  that  of  the  Jesuits.  In  education 
Comenius  was  immeasurably  in  advance  of  Loyola  and 
Aquaviva.  Like  the  great  thinkers,  Pestalozzi  and  Froebel, 
who  most  resemble  him,  he  thought  of  the  development  of 
the  child  from  its  birth  ;  and  in  a  singularly  wise  little  book, 
called  Schola  materni  gremii,  or  "  School  of  the  Mother's 
Breast,"  he  has  given  advice  for  bringing  up  children  to  the 
age  of  six.* 

•  Translated  by  Daniel  Benham  as  The  School  of  Infancy.  London, 
1858. 


COMENIUS.  143 


Comenius  and  the  Kindergarten. 

§  38.  Very  interesting  are  the  hints  here  given,  in 
which  we  get  the  first  approaches  to  Kindergarten  training. 
Comenius  saw  that,  much  as  their  elders  might  do  to 
develop  children's  powers  of  thought  and  expression,  "  yet 
children  of  the  same  age  and  the  same  manners  and  habits 
are  of  greater  service  still.  When  they  talk  or  play 
together,  they  sharpen  each  other  more  effectually ;  for  the 
one  does  not  surpass  the  other  in  depth  of  invention,  and 
there  is  among  them  no  assumption  of  superiority  of  the 
one  over  the  other,  only  love,  candour,  free  questionings 
and  answers"  {School  of  Infancy,  vi,  12,  p.  38).*  The 
constant  activity  of  children  must  be  provided  for.  "  It  is 
better  to  play  than  to  be  idle,  for  during  play  the  mind  is 
intent  on  some  object  which  often  sharpens  the  abilities. 
In  this  way  children  may  be  early  exercised  to  an  active 
life  without  any  difficulty,  since  Nature  herself  stirs  them 
up  to  be  doing  something"  {lb.  ix,  15,  p.  55).  "In  the 
second,  third,  fourth  years,  &c.,  let  their  spirits  be  stirred  up 
by  means  of  agreeable  play  with  them  or  their  playing 
among  themselves.  .  .  .  Nay,  if  some  little  occupation 
can  be  conveniently  provided  for  the  child's  eyes,  ears,  or 
other  senses,  these  will  contribute  to  its  vigour  of  mind  and 
body"  {lb.  vi,  21,  p.  31). 

§  39.  We    have    the    usual    cautions    against    forcing. 

•  Here  Comenius  seems  to  be  thinking  of  the  intercourse  of  children 
when  no  older  compatiion  is  present ;  Froebel  made  more  of  the  very 
dift'erent  intercourse  when  their  thoughts  and  actions  are  led  by  some 
one  who  has  studied  how  to  lead  them.  Children  constantly  want  help 
from  their  elders  even  in  amusing  themselves.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
only  the  very  wdsest  of  mortals  who  can  give  help  enough  and  no  more. 
Self-dependence  may  sometimes  be  cultivated  by  "a  little  wholesome 
neglect." 


144  COMENIUS. 


Starting  points  of  the  sciences. 

•'  Early  fniit  is  useful  for  the  day,  but  will  not  keep,;  whereas 
late  fruit  may  be  kept  all  the  year.  As  some  natural 
capacities  would  fly,  as  it  were,  before  the  sixth,  the  fifth,  or 
even  the  fourth  year,  yet  it  will  be  beneficial  rather  to 
restrain  than  permit  this  ;  but  very  much  worse  to  enfo/ce 
it."  **  It  is  safer  that  the  brain  be  rightly  consolidated  before 
it  begin  to  sustain  labours :  in  a  little  child  the  whole 
bregma  is  scarcely  closed  and  the  brain  consolidated 
within  the  fifth  or  sixth  year.  It  is  sufficient,  therefore,  for 
this  age  to  comprehend  spontaneously,  imperceptibly  and 
as  it  were  in  play,  so  much  as  is  employed  in  the  domestic 
circle  "  {3.  chap.  xi). 

§  40.  One  disastrous  tendency  has  always  shown  itself 
in  the  schoolroom — the  tendency  to  sever  all  connection 
between  studies  in  the  schoolroom  and  life  outside.  The 
young  pack  away  their  knowledge  as  it  were  in  water-tight 
compartments,  where  it  may  lie  conveniently  till  the 
scholastic  voyage  is  over  and  it  can  be  again  unshipped.* 
Against  this  tendency  many  great  teachers  have  striven, 
and  none  more  vigorously  than  Comenius.  Like  Pestalozzi 
he  sought  to  resolve  everything  into  its  simplest  elements, 
and  he  finds  the  commencements  before  the  school  age. 
In  the  School  of  Infancy  he  says  (speaking  of  rhetoric), 
•'  My  aim  is  to  shew,  although  this  is  not  generally  attended 
to,  that  the  roots  of  all  sciences  and  arts  in  every  instance 


•  Comical  and  at  the  same  time  melancholy  results  follow.  In  an 
elementary  school,  where  the  children  "took  up"  geography  for  the 
Inspector,  I  once  put  some  questions  about  St.  Paul  at  Rome.  I  asked 
tn  what  country  Rome  was,  but  nobody  seemed  to  have  heard  of  such  a 
place.  "  It's  geography  !"  said  I,  and  some  twenty  hands  went  up 
directly  :  their  owners  now  answered  quite  readily,  "In  Italy." 


COMENIUS.  145 


Beginnings  in  Geography,  History,  &c.  vtw>; 

arise  as  early  as  in  the  tender  age,  and  that  on  these 
foundations  it  is  neither  impossible  nor  difficult  for  the 
whole  superstructure  to  be  laid ;  provided  always  that  we 
act  reasonably  with  a  reasonable  creature  "  (viij,  6,  p.  46). 
'I'his  principle  he  applies  in  his  chapter,  "How  children 
ought  to  be  accustomed  to  an  active  life  and  perpetual 
employment "  (chap,  vij).  In  the  fourth  and  fifth  year  their 
powers  are  to  be  drawn  out  in  mechanical  or  architectural 
efforts,  in  drawing  and  writing,  in  music,  in  arithmetic, 
geometry,  and  dialectics.  For  arithmetic  in  the  fourth, 
fifth,  or  sixth  year,  it  will  be  sufficient  if  they  count  up  to 
twenty ;  and  they  may  be  taught  to  play  at  "  odd  and  even," 
In  geometry  ihey  may  learn  in  the  fourth  year  what  are 
lines,  what  are  squares,  what  are  circles;  also  the  usual 
measures — foot,  pint,  quart,  &c.,  and  soon  they  should  try 
to  measure  and  weigh  for  themselves.  Similar  beginnings 
are  found  for  other  sciences  such  as  physics,  astronomy, 
geography,  history,  economics,  and  politics.  "  The  elements 
oi geography  will  be  during  the  course  of  the  first  year  and 
thenceforward,  when  children  begin  to  distinguish  between 
their  cradles  and  their  mother's  bosom"  (vj,  6,  p.  34). 
As  this  geographical  knowledge  extends,  they  discover  "what 
a  field  is,  what  a  mountain,  forest,  meadow,  river"  (iv,  9, 
p.  17).  "The  beginning  of  history  will  be,  to  be  able  to 
remember  what  was  done  yesterday,  what  recently,  what  a 
year  ago."*     {Ib^ 

§  41,    In   this   book   Comenius    is    careful   to   provide 

*  "  A  talent  for  History  may  be  said  to  be  bom  with  us,  as  our  chief 
inheritance.  In  a  certain  sense  all  men  are  historians.  Is  not  every 
memory  written  quite  full  of  annals  .  .  .  ?  Our  very  speech  is 
curiously  historical.  Most  men,  you  may  observe,  speak  only  to 
narrate."     (Carlyle  on  ^w-/<7/3'.     Miscellanies.) 


146  COMENIUS. 


Drawing.    Education  for  all. 


children  with  occupation  for  '■^  mind  and  hand"  (iv,  10,  p.  18). 
Drawing  is  to  be  practised  by  all.  "  It  matters  not,"  says 
Comenius,  "whether  the  objects  be  correctly  drawn  or 
otherwise /rm^(f</  that  they  afford  delight  to  the  mind."* 

§  42.  We  see  then  that  this  restless  thinker  considered 
the  entire  course  of  a  child's  bringing-up  from  the  cradle  to 
maturity ;  and  we  cannot  doubt  that  Raumer  is  right  in 
saying,  "  The  influence  of  Comenius  on  subsequent  thinkers 
and  workers  in  education,  especially  on  the  Methodizers,  is 
incalculable."    {Gesch.  d.  P.,  ij,  "Comenius,"  §  10.) 

Before  we  think  of  his  methods  and  school  books,  let  us 
inquire  what  he  did  for  education  that  has  proved  to  be  on 
L  a  solid  foundation  and  "  not  liable  to  any  ruin." 

§  43.  He  was  the  first  to  reach  a  standpoint  which  was 
and  perhaps  always  will  be  above  the  heads  of  "  the  practical 
men,"  and  demand  education  for  all.  "We  design  for  all 
who.  have  been  born  human  beings,  general  instruction  to 
fit  them  for  everything  human.  They  must,  therefore,  as 
far  as  possible  be  taught  together,  so  that  they  may  mutually 
draw  each  other  out,  enliven  and  stimulate.  Of  the 
*  mother-tongue  school '  the  end  and  aim  will  be,  that  all 
the  youth  of  both  sexes  between  the  sixth  and  the  twelfth 
or  thirteenth  years  be  taught  those  things  which  will  be 
useful  to  them  all  their  life  long."t 

•  South  Kensington,  which  controls  the  drawing  of  millions  of  chil- 
dren, says  precisely  the  opposite,  and  prescribes  a  kind  of  drawing, 
which,  though  it  may  give  manual  skill  to  adults,  does  not  "  afford 
delight "  to  the  mind  of  children. 

t  "Generalem  nos  intendimus  institutionem  omnium  qui  homines  nati 
sunt,  ad  omnia  humana.  .  .  Vernaculse  (scholse)  scopus  metaque  erit, 
Ht  omnis  juventus  utriusque  sexus,  intra  annum  sextum  et  duodecimum 
Beu  decimum  tertium,  ea  addoceatur  quorum  usus  per  totam  vitam  so 


COMENIUS.  147 


Scientific  and  Religious  Agreement. 

In  these  days  we  often  hear  controversies  between  the 
tren  of  science  and  the  ministers  of  religion.  It  is  as  far 
beyond  my  intention  as  it  is  beyond  my  abilities  to  discuss 
how  far  the  antithesis  between  religion  and  science  is  a  true 
one ;  but  our  subject  sometimes  forces  us  to  observe  that 
religion  and  science  often  bring  thinkers  by  different  paths 
to  the  same  result ;  e.g.,  they  both  refuse  to  recognise  class 
distinctions  and  make  us  see  an  essential  unity  underlying 
superficial  variations.  In  Comenius  we  have  an  earnest 
Christian  minister  who  was  also  an  enthusiast  for  science. 
Moreover  he  was  without  social  and  virtually  without 
national  restrictions,  and  he  was  thus  in  a  good  position  for 
expressing  freely  and  without  bias  what  both  his  science 
and  his  religion  taught  him.  "  Not  only  are  the  children  of 
the  rich  and  noble  to  be  drawn  to  the  school,  but  all  alike, 
gentle  and  simple,  rich  and  poor,  boys  and  girls,  in  great 
towns  and  small,  down  to  the  country  villages.  And  for  this 
reason.  Every  one  who  is  born  a  human  being  is  born  with 
this  intent — chat  he  should  be  a  human  being,  that  is,  a 
reasonable  creature  ruling  over  the  other  creatures  and  bear- 
ing the  likeness  of  his  Maker."  {Didactica  M.  ix,  §  i.) 
This  sounds  to  me  nobler  than  the  utterances  of  Rousseau 
and  the  French  Revolutionists,  not  to  mention  Locke  who 
fell  back  on  considering  merely  "  the  gentleman's  calling." 
Even  Bishop  Butler  a  century  after  Comenius  hardly  takes 
so  firm  a  ground,  though  he  lays  it  down  that  "  children 


extendat."  I  quote  this  Latin  from  the  excellent  article  ComSnius  (by 
several  writers)  in  Buisson's  Dictionnaire.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  get 
an  author's  exact  words.  Unfortunately  the  writei  in  the  Dictionnaire 
follows  custom  and  does  not  give  the  means  of  verifying  the  quotation. 
Comenius  in  Latin  I  have  never  seen  except  in  the  British  Museum. 


148  COMENIUS. 


Bp.  Butler  on  Educating  the  Poor. 


have  as  much  right  to  some  proper  education  as  to  have 
their  lives  preserved."* 

§  44.  The  first  man  who  demanded  training  for  every 
human  heing  because  he  or  she  was  a  human  being  must 
always  be  thought  of  with  respect  and  gratitude  by  all  who 
care  either  for  science  or  religion.  It  has  taken  us  250 
years  to  reach  the  standpoint  of  Comenius ;  but  we  have 
reached  it,  or  almost  reached  it  at  last,  and  when  we  have 
once  got  hold  of  the  idea  we  are  not  likely  to  lose  it  again. 
The  only  question  is  whether  we  shall  not  go  on  and  in  the 
end  agree  with  Comenius  that  the  primary  school  shall  be 
for  rich  and  poor  alike.  At  present  the  practical  men,  in 
England  especially,  have  things  all  their  own  way  ;  but  their 
horizon  is  and  must  be  very  limited.    They  have  already  had 

*  In  Sermon  on  Charity  Schools,  A.D.  1745.  The  Bishop  points 
out  that  "  training  up  children  is  a  very  different  thing  from  merely 
teaching  them  some  truths  necessary  to  be  known  or  believed."  He 
oes  into  the  historical  aspect  of  the  subject.  As  since  the  days  d 
Eizabeth  there  has  been  legal  provision  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
poor,  there  has  been  "need  also  of  some  particular  legal  provision  in 
behalf  of  poor  children  for  their  education  ;  this  not  being  included  in 
what  we  call  maintenance."  "But,"  says  the  Bishop,  "it  might  be 
necessary  that  a  burden  so  entirely  new  as  that  of  a  poor-tax  was  at  the 
time  I  am  speaking  of,  should  be  as  light  as  possible.  Thus  the  legal 
provision  for  the  poor  was  first  settled  without  any  particular  considera* 
tion  of  that  additional  want  in  the  case  of  children ;  as  it  still  remains 
with  scarce  any  alteration  in  this  respect."  And  remained  for  nearly  a 
century  longer.  Great  changes  naturally  followed  and  will  follow  from 
the  extension  of  the  franchise ;  and  another  century  will  probably  see 
us  with  a  Folkschool  worthy  of  its  importance.  By  that  time  we  shall 
no  longer  be  open  to  the  sarcasm  of  "the  foreign  friend:"  "It  is 
highly  instructive  to  visit  English  elementary  schools,  for  there  you 
find  everything  that  should  be  avoided."  (M.  Braun  quoted  by  Mr.  A. 
Sonnenschein.     The  Old  Code  was  in  force.) 


COMENIUS.  149 


Comenius  and  Bacon. 


to  adjust  themselves  to  many  things  which  their  predecessors  'V  - 
declared  to  be  "  quite  impracticable — indeed  impossible." 
May  not  their  successors  in  like  manner  get  accustomed  to 
other  "  impossible  "  things,  this  scheme  of  Comenius  among 
them? 

§  45.  The  champions  of  realism  have  always  recognised 
Comenius  as  one  of  their  earliest  leaders.  Bacon  had  just 
given  voice  to  the  scientific  spirit  which  had  at  length  re- 
belled against  the  literary  spirit  dominant  at  the  Renascence, 
and  .had  begun  to  turn  from  all  that  had  been  thought  and 
said  about  Nature,  straight  to  Nature  herself.  Comenius 
was  the  professed  disciple  of  "the  noble  Verulam,  who," 
said  he,  "has  given  us  the  true  key  of  Nature."  Furnished 
with  this  key,  Comenius  would  unlock  the  door  of  the 
treasure-house  for  himself.  "  It  grieved  me,"  he  says,  "that 
I  saw  most  noble  Verulam  present  us  indeed  with  a  true 
key  of  Nature,  but  not  to  open  the  secrets  of  Nature,  only 
shewing  us  by  a  few  examples  how  they  were  to  be  opened, 
and  leave  [i.e.,  leaving]  the  rest  to  depend  on  observations 
and  inductions  continued  for  several  ages."  Comenius 
thought  that  by  the  light  of  the  senses,  of  reason,  and  of  the 
Bible,  he  might  advance  faster.  "  For  what  ?  Are  not  we 
as  well  as  the  old  philosophers  placed  in  Nature's  garden  ? 
Why  then  do  we  not  cast  about  our  eyes,  nostrils,  and  ears  , 
as  well  as  they  ?  Why  should  we  learn  the  works  of  Nature  I 
of  any  other  master  rather  than  of  these  our  senses  ?  Why  I 
do  we  not,  I  say,  turn  over  the  living  book  of  the  world  in- 
stead of  dead  papers?  In  it  we  may  contemplate  more 
things  and  with  greater  delight  and  profit  than  any  one 
can  tell  us.  If  we  have  anywhere  need  of  an  interpreter, 
the  Maker  of  Nature  is  the  best  interpreter  Himself."  (Pre- 
face to  Naturall  Philosophic  reformed.    English  trans.,  1 65 1 .) 


I50  COMENIUS. 


"  Everything  Through  the  Senses." 

§  46.  Several  things  are  involved  in  this  so-called 
*'  realism."  First,  Comenius  would  fix  the  mind  of  learners 
on  material  objects.  Secondly,  he  would  have  them  acqu'ie 
their  notions  of  these  for  themselves  through  the  senses. 
From  these  two  principles  he  drew  the  corollary  that  the 
vast  accumulation  of  traditional  learning  and  literature  must 
be  thrown  overboard. 

§  47.  The  demand  for  the  study  of  things  has  been 
best  formulated  by  one  of  the  greatest  masters  of  words,  by 
Milton.  "  Because  our  understanding  cannot  in  the  body 
found  itself  but  on  sensible  things,  nor  arrive  so  clearly  to 
the  knowifedge  of  God  and  things  invisible,  as  by  orderly 
conning  over  the  visible  and  inferior  creature,  the  same 
method  is  necessarily  to  be  followed  in  all  discreet  teaching." 
{To  Hartlib)  Its  material  surroundings  then  are  to  be  the 
subjects  «n  which  the  mind  of  the  child  must  be  fixed. 
This  being  settled,  Comenius  demands  that  the  child's 
knowledge  shall  not  be  verbal  but  real  realism,  knowledge 
derived  at  first  hand  through  the  senses.* 

§  48.  On  this  subject  Comenius  may  speak  for  himself : 
*'  The  ground  of  this  business  is,  that  sensual  objects  [we 
now  say  sensible :  why  not  sensuous  f\  be  rightly  presented 
to  the  senses,  for  fear  they  may  not  be  received.  I  say,  and 
say  it  again  aloud,  that  this  last  is  the  foundation  of  all  the 
rest :  because  we  can  neither  act  nor  speak  wisely,  unless 


*  "Adhuc  sub  judice  lis  est."  I  find  the  editor  of  an  American 
educational  paper  brandishing  in  the  face  of  an  opponent  as  a  quotation 
from  Professor  N.  A.  Calkins'  "  Ear  and  Voice  Training "  :  "  The 
senses  are  Ihe  only  powers  by  which  children  can  gain  the  elements  of 
knowledge ;  and  until  these  have  been  trained  to  act,  no  definite  know- 
ledge can  be  acquired."  But  Calkins  says,  "act,  under  direction  di 
the  mind." 


COMENIUS.  151 


Error  of  Neglecting  the  Senses. 

we  first  rightly  understand  all  the  things  which  are  to  be 
done  and  whereof  we  have  to  speak.  Now  there  is  nothing  <-> 
in  the  understanding  which  was  not  before  in  the  sense 
And  therefore  to  exercise  the  senses  well  about  the  right 
perceiving  the  differences  of  things  will  be  to  lay  the  grounds 
for  all  wisdom  and  all  wise  discourse  and  all  discreet  actions 
in  one's  course  of  life.  Which,  because  it  is  commonly 
neglected  in  Schools,  and  the  things  that  are  to  be  learned 
are  offered  to  scholars  without  their  being  understood  or 
being  rightly  presented  to  the  senses,  it  cometh  to  pass  that 
the  work  of  teaching  and  learning  goeth  heavily  onward  and 
affordeth  little  benefit."  (Preface  to  Orbis  Pictus,  Hoole's 
trans.     A.D.  1658.) 

§  49.  Without  going  into  any  metaphysical  discussion, 
we  must  all  agree  that  a  vast  amount  of  impressions  come 
to  children  through  the  senses,  and  that  it  is  by  the  exercise 
of  the  senses  that  they  learn  most  readily.  As  Comenius 
says :  "  The  senses  (being  the  main  guides  of  childhood, 
because  therein  the  mind  doth  not  as  yet  raise  up  it  self  to  an 
abstracted  contemplation  of  things)  evermore  seek  Jheir 
own  objects;  and  if  these  be  away,  they  grow  dull,  and 
wry  themselves  hither  and  thither  out  of  a  weariness  of 
themselves :  but  when  their  objects  are  present,  they  grow 
merry,  wax  lively,  and  willingly  suffer  themselves  to  be 
fastened  upon  them  till  the  thing  be  sufficiently  discerned."  ■ 
(P.  to  Orbis.)  This  truth  lay  at  the  root  of  most  of  the 
methods  of  Pestalozzi ;  and  though  it  has  had  little  effect 
on  teaching  in  England  (where  for  the  word  anschatdich  "~~^ 
there  is  no  equivalent),  everything  that  goes  on  in  a  German 
Folkschool  has  reference  to  it. 

§  50.  For  children  then   Comenius   gave   good  counsel 
when  he  would  have  their  senses  exercised  on  the  world 


J:^  -u-ji.-oL    'i-^-'^r^^^     '^^ 


152  COMENIUS. 


Insufficiency  of  the  Senses. 


about  them.  But  after  all,  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the 
proposition  that  all  knowledge  comes  through  the  senses, 
we  must  not  ignore  what  is  bequeathed  to  us,  both  in  science 
and  in  literature.  Comenius  says :  "  And  now  [  beseech 
you  let  this  be  our  business  that  the  schools  may  cease  to 
'  persuade  and  begin  to  demonstrate  \  cease  to  dispute  and 
begin  to  look ;  cease  lastly  to  believe  and  begin  to  know. 
For  that  Aristotellical  maxim  ^  Discentem  oportet  credere,  A 
learner  must  believe,'  is  as  tyrannical  as  it  is  dangerous ;  so 
also  is  that  same  Pythagorean  ^  Ipse  dixit,  The  Master  has 
said  it'  Let  no  man  be  compelled  to  swear  to  his  Master's 
words,  but  let  the  things  themselves  constrain  the  intellect." 
(P.  to  Nat.  Phil.  R.)  But  the  things  themselves  will  not 
take  us  far.  Even  in  Natural  Science  we  need  teachers,  for 
Science  is  not  reached  through  the  senses  but  through  the 
intellectual  grasp  of  knowledge  which  has  been  accumulating 
for  centuries.  If  the  education  of  times  past  has  neglected 
the  senses,  we  must  not  demand  that  the  education  of  the 
future  should  care  for  the  senses  only.  There  is  as  yet 
little  danger  of  our  thinking  too  much  of  physical  education  ; 
but  we  sometimes  hear  reformers  talking  as  if  the  true  ideal 
were  sketched  in  "  Locksley  Hall :" 

"  Iron-jointed,  supple-sinew'd,  they  shall  dive,  and  they  shall  run. 
Catch  the  wild  goat  by  the  hair,  and  hurl  their  lances  in  the  sun, 
AVhistle  back  the  parrot's  call,  and  leap  the  rainbows  of  the  brooks ; 
Not  with  blinded  eyesight  poring  over  miserable  books," 

There  seems,  however,  still  some  reason  for  counting  "  the 
gray  barbarian  lower  than  the  Christian  child."  And  the 
reason  is  that  we  are  "the  heirs  of  all  the  ages."  Our 
education  must  enable  every  child  to  enter  in  some  measure 
on  his  inheritance  ;  and  not  a  few  of  our  most  precious  heir 


COMENIUS.  153 


C.  undervalued  the  Past. 


looms  will  be  found  not  only  in  scientific  discoveries  but 
also  in  those  great  works  of  literature  which  the  votaries  of 
science  are  apt  to  despise  as  "miserable  books."  This 
truth  was  not  duly  appreciated  byComenius.  As  Professor 
Laurie  well  says,  "he  accepted  only  in  a  half-hearted  way  '  ' 
the  products  of  the  genius  of  past  ages."  (Laurie's  C,  p. 
22.)  In  his  day  there  was  a  violent  reaction  from  the 
Renascence  passion  for  literature,  and  Comenius  would 
entirely  banish  from  education  the  only  literatures  which 
were  then  important,  the  "heathen"  literatures  of  Greece 
and  Rome.  "  Our  most  learned  men,"  says  he,  "  even 
among  the  theologians  take  from  Christ  only  the  mask  :  the 
blood  and  life  they  draw  from  Aristotle  and  a  crowd  of 
other  heathens."  (See  Paulsen's  Gesch.,  pp.  312,  ff.)  So 
for  Cicero  and  Virgil  he  would  substitute,  and  his  con- 
temporaries at  first  seemed  willing  to  accept,  the  Janua 
Linguarum.  But  though  there  may  be  much  more  "  real " 
knowledge   in   the  Janua,  the  classics  have  survived  it.* 

•  "What  do  you  learn  from  'Paradise  Lost'?  Nothing  at  all. 
What  do  you  le.-im  from  a  cookery  book  ?  Something  new,  something 
that  you  did  nqt  know  before,  in  every  paragraph.  But  would  you 
therefore  put  the  wretched  cookery  book  on  a  higher  level  of  estima- 
tion than  the  divine  poem  ?  What  you  owe  to  Milton  is  not  any 
knowledge,  of  which  a  million  separate  items  are  but  a  million  of 
advancing  steps  on  the  same  earthly  level :  what  you  owe  is  power, 
that  is,  exercise  and  expansion  to  your  own  latent  capacity  of  sympathy 
with  the  infinite,  where  every  pulse  and  each  separate  influx  is  a  step 
upward — a  step  ascending  as  upon  a  Jacob's  ladder  from  earth  to 
'Jiysterious  altitudes  above  the  earth.  All  the  steps  of  knowledge  from 
first  to  last  carry  you  further  on  the  same  plane,  but  could  never  raise 
you  one  foot  above  your  ancient  level  of  earth  ;  whereas  the  vtry  first 
step  in  power  is  a.  flight,  is  an  ascending  into  another  element  where 
earth  is  forgotten."  I  have  met  with  this  as  a  quotation  from  De 
Quincey. 


154  COMENIUS. 


Literature  and  Science. 


In  these  days  there  is  a  passion  for  the  study  of  things 
which  in  its  intensity  resembles  the  Renascence  passion  for 
literature.  There  is  a  craving  for  knowledge,  and  we  know 
only  the  truths  we  can  verify;  so  this  craving  must  be 
satisfied,  not  by  words,  but  things.  And  yet  that  domain 
which  the  physicists  contemptuously  describe  as  the  study 
of  words  must  not  be  lost  sight  of,  indeed  cannot  be,  either 
by  young  or  old.  As  Matthew  Arnold  has  said,  "those 
who  are  for  giving  to  natural  knowledge  the  chief  place  in 
the  education  of  the  majority  of  mankind  leave  one  im- 
portant thing  out  of  their  account — the  constitution  of 
human  nature." 

"We  live  by  Admiration,  Hope,  and  Love, 
And  e'en  as  these  are  well  and  wisely  fixed, 
In  dignity  of  being  we  ascend." 

So  says  Wordsworth,  and  if  this  assertion  cannot  be 
verified,  no  more  can  it  be  disproved ;  that  the  words  have 
become  almost  proverbial  shows  that  it  commends  itself  to 
the  general  consciousness.  Whatever  knowledge  we  may 
acquire,  it  will  have  httle  effect  on  our  lives  unless  we  can 
y  "relate  it"  (again  to  use  Matthew  Arnold's  words),  "to  oui 
sense  of  conduct  and  our  sense  of  beauty."  {Discourses  in 
America.  "  Literature  and  Science.")  So  long  as  we  retain 
our  sense  for  these,  "  the  humanities"  are  safe.  Like  Milton 
we  may  have  no  inclination  to  study  "  modern  Januas,"  but  we 
shall  not  cease  to  value  many  of  the  works  which  the  Janua 
of  Comenius  was  supposed  to  have  supplanted.* 

•  When  I  visited  (some  years  ago)  the  "  6cole  Modele"  at  Brussels 
I  was  told  that  books  were  used  for  nothing  except  for  learning  to  read. 
Comenius  was  saved  from  this  consequence  of  his  realism  by  his  fervent 
Christianity.     lie  valued  the  study  of  the  Bible  as  highly  as  the  Re» 

.7/-    y^  /    7.    J  "J    .^H4    ^^JJb^    ..^^.l-r 


COMENIUS.  155 


C.'s  use  of  Analogies. 


§  51.  "Analogies  are  good  for  illustration,  not  for 
proof."  If  Comenius  had  accepted  this  caution,  he  would 
have  escaped  much  useless  labour,  and  might  have  had  a 
better  foundation  for  his  rules  than  fanciful  applications  of 

nascence  scholars  valued  the  study  of  the  classics,  though  for  a  veiy 
different  leason.  He  cared  for  the  Bible  not  as  literature,  but  as  the 
highest  authority  on  the  problems  of  existence.  Those  who,  like 
Matthew  Arnold,  may  attribute  to  it  far  less  authority  may  still  treasure 
it  as  literature,  while  those  who  despise  literature  and  recognise  no 
authority  above  things  would  limit  us  to  the  curriculum  of  the  "  Ecole 
Modele  "  and  care  for  natural  science  only. 

In  this  country  we  are  fortunately  able  to  advocate  some  reforms 
which  were  suggested  by  the  realism  of  Comenius  without  incurring  any 
suspicion  of  rejecting  his  Christianity.  It  is  singular  to  see  how  the 
highest  authorities  of  to-day — ^men  conversant  with  the  subj'-ct  on  the 
side  of  practice  as  well  as  theory — hold  precisely  the  language  which 
practical  men  have  been  wont  to  laugh  at  as  "theoretical  nonsense" 
ever  since  the  days  of  Comenius.  A  striking  instance  will  be  found  in 
a  lecture  by  the  Principal  of  the  Battersea  Training  College  (Rev.  Canon 
Daniel)  as  reported  in  Educational  Times,  July,  1889.  Compare  what 
Comenius  said  (supra  p.  151)  with  the  following  :  "Children  are  not 
sufficiently  required  to  use  their  senses.  They  are  allowed  to  observe 
by  deputy.  They  look  at  Nature  through  the  spectacles  of  Books,  and 
through  the  eyes  of  the  teacher,  but  do  not  observe  for  themselves.  It 
might  be  expected  that  in  object  lessons  and  science  lessons,  which  are 
specially  intended  to  cultivate  the  observing  faculty,  this  fault  would  be 
avoided,  but  I  do  not  find  that  such  is  the  case.  I  often  hear  lessons  on 
objects  that  are  not  object  lessons  at  all.  The  object  is  not  allowed  to 
speak  for  itself,  eloquent  though  it  is,  and  capable  though  it  is  of  adapt- 
ing its  teaching  to  the  youngest  child  who  interrogates  it.  The  teacher 
buties  it  under  a  heap  of  words  and  second-hand  statements,  thereby 
converting  the  object  lesson  into  a  verbal  lesson  and  throwing  away 
golden  opportunities  of  forming  the  scientific  habit  of  mind.  Now 
mental  science  teaches  us  that  our  knowledge  of  the  sensible  qualities  of 
the  material  world  can  come  to  us  only  through  our  senses,  and  through 
the  right  senses      If  we  had  no  senses  we  should  know  nothing  about 


156  COMENIUS. 


Thought-studies  and  Label-studies. 

what  he  observed  in  the  external  world.  "Comenius"as 
August  Vogel  has  said,  "is  unquestionably  right  in  wishing 
to  draw  his  principles  of  education  from  Nature ;  but  instead 
of  examining  the  proper  constitution  and  nature  of  man,  and 

the  material  world  at  all ;  if  we  had  a  sense  less  we  should  be  cut  off 
from  a  whole  class  of  facts  ;  if  we  had  as  many  senses  as  are  ascribed  to 
the  inhabitants  of  Sirius  in  Voltaire's  novel,  our  knowledge  would  be 
proportionately  greater  than  it  is  now.  Words  cannot  compensate  for 
sensations.  The  eloquence  of  a  Cicero  would  not  explain  to  a  deaf  man 
what  music  is,  or  to  a  blind  man  what  scarlet  is.  Yet  I  have  frequently 
seen  teachers  wholly  disregard  these  obvious  truths.  They  have  taught 
as  though  their  pupils  had  eyes  that  saw  not,  and  ears  that  heard  not, 
and  noses  that  smelled  not,  and  palates  that  tasted  not,  and  skins  that  felt 
not,  and  muscles  that  would  not  work.  They  have  insisted  on  taking 
the  words  out  of  Nature's  mouth  and  speaking  for  her.  They  have 
thought  it  derogatory  to  play  a  subordinate  part  to  the  object  itself." 

This  subject  has  been  well  treated  by  Mr.  Thos.  M.  Balliet  in  a  paper 
on  shortening  the  curriculum  {New  York  School  Journal,  loth  Nov., 
1888).  "Studies,"  says  he,  "are  of  two  kinds  (i)  studies  which  supply  the 
mind  with  thoughts  of  images,  and  (2)  those  which  give  us  'labels,*  i.e. 
the  means  of  indicating  and  so  communicating  thought.  Under  the  last 
head  come  the  study  of  language,  writing  (including  spelling),  notation, 
&c."  Mr.  Balliet  proposes,  as  Comenius  did,  that  the  symbol  subjects  shall 
not  be  taken  separately,  but  in  connexion  with  the  thought  subjects. 
Especially  in  the  mother-tongue,  we  should  study  language  for  thought, 
not  thought  for  the  sake  of  language. 

But  after  all  though  we  may  and  should  bring  the  young  in  connexion 
with  the  objects  of  thought  and  not  with  words  merely,  we  must  not 
forget  that  the  scholastic  aspect  of  things  will  differ  from  the  practical 
When  brought  into  the  schoolroom  the  thing  must  be  divested  of  details 
and  surroundings,  and  used  to  give  a  conception  of  one  of  a  class.  The 
fir  tree  of  the  schoolboy  cannot  be  the  fir  tree  of  the  wood-cutter.  The 
"  boiler "  becomes  a  cylinder  subject  to  internal  or  external  pressure. 
It  is  not  the  thing  that  the  engine-driver  knows  will  bum  and  corrode, 
get  foul  in  its  tubes  and  loose  in  its  joints,  and  be  liable  to  burst.  (See 
Mr.  C.  H.  Benton  on  "Practical  and  Theoretical  Training  "  in  Spectator ^ 


COMENIUS.  157 


Unity  of  Knowledges. 


taking  that  as  the  basis  of  his  theory,  he  watches  the  Hfe  of 
birds,  the  growth  of  trees,  or  the  quiet  influence  of  the  sun, 

1  Qand  thus  substitutes  for  the  nature  of  man  nature  wiihotit '"^ 'U^ 
'  vm^f^di'e  objective  Naiur).  And  yet  by  Nature  he  under- 
stands that  first  and  primordial  state  to  which  as  to  our 
original  [idea]  we  should  be  restored,  and  by  the  voice  of 
Nature  he  understands  the  universal  Providence  of  God  or 
the  ceaseless  influence  of  the  Divine  Goodness  working  all 
in  all,  that  is,  leading  every  creature  to  the  state  ordained 
for  it.  The  vegetative  and  animal  life  in  Nature  is  according 
to  Comenius  himself  not  life  at  all  in  its  highest  sense,  but 
tne  only  true  life  is  the  intellectual  or  spiritual  hfe  of  Man. 
No  doubt  in  the  two  lower  kinds  of  life  certain  analogies 
may  be  found  for  the  higher;  but  nothing  can  be  less 
worthy  of  reliance  and  less  scientific  than  a  method  which 
draws  its  principles  for  the  higher  life  from  what  has  been 
observed  in  the  lower."  (A.  Vogel's  Gesch.  d.  Pddagogik 
als  Wissenschaft,  p.  94.) 

§52.  This  seems  to  me  judicious  criticism;  but  what- 
ever mistakes  he  may  have  made  Comenius,  like  Froebel 
long  after  him,  strove  after  a  higher  unity  which  should 

'      /  embrace  knowledge   of  every  kind.      The   connexion   of         \ 
"knowledges  (so  constantly  overlooked  in  the  schoolroom)         ^ 

<»        was  always  in  his  thoughts.     "  We  see  that  the  branches  of  a 

^■^^  tree  cannot  live  unless  they  all  alike  suck  their  juices  from 
a  common  trunk  with  common  roots.  And  can  we  hope 
that  the  branches  of  Wisdom  can  be  torn  asunder  with  safety 
to  their  life,  that  is  to  truth  ?  Can  one  be  a  Natural  Philosopher 


ioth  Nov.,  1888).     The  school  knowledge  of  things  no  less  than  of 
words  may  easily  be  over-valued.     It  should  be  given  not  for  itself  but 
10  excite  interest  and  draw  out  the  powers  of  the  mind. 
13 


158  COMENIUS. 


Theory  and  the  Practical  Man. 

who  is  not  also  a  Metaphysician?  or  an  Ethical  Thinker  who 
does  not  know  something  of  Physical  Science  ?  or  a  Logician 
who  has  no  knowledge  of  real  matters?  or  a  Theologian,  a 
jurisconsult,  or  a  Physician,  who  is  not  first  a  Philosopher? 
or  an  Orator  or  Poet,  who  is  not  all  these  at  once  ?  He 
deprives  himself  of  light,  of  hand,  and  of  regulation,  who 
pushes  away  from  him  any  shred  of  the  knowable."  (Quoted 
in  Masson's  L.  of  Milton  vol.  iij.,  p.  213  from  the  Delineatio, 
[i.e.,  Pansophia  Frodromus],  Conf.  J.  H.  Newman,  Idea  oj 
a  University,  Disc,  iij.) 

§  53-  We  see  then  that  on  the  side  of  theory,  Comenius 
was  truly  great.  But  the  practical  man  who  has  always  been 
the  tyrant  of  the  schoolroom  cared  nothing  for  theory  and 
held,  with  a  modern  English  minister  responsible  for  educa- 
tion, who  proved  his  ignorance  of  theory  by  his  "  New  Code," 
that  there  was,  and  could  be  no  such  thing.  So  the  reputa- 
tion of  Comenius  became  pretty  much  what  our  great 
authority  Hallam  has  recorded,  that  he  was  a  person  of  some 
ingenuity  and  little  judgment  who  invented  a  new  way  of 
learnmg  Latin.  This  estimate  of  him  enables  us  to  follow 
some  windings  in  the  stream  of  thought  about  education. 
Comenius  faced  the  whole  problem  in  its  double  bearing, 
theory  and  practice :  he  asked,  What  is  the  educator's  task  ? 
How  can  he  best  accomplish  it  ?  But  his  contemporaries 
had  not  yet  recovered  from  the  idolatry  of  Latin  which  had 
been  bequeathed  to  them  by  their  fathers  from  the  Renas- 
cence, and  they  too  saw  in  Comenius  chiefly  an  inventor  of 
a  new  way  of  learning  Latin.  He  sought  to  train  up  chil- 
dren for  this  world  and  the  next;  they  supposed,  as 
Oxenstiern  himself  said,  that  the  main  thing  to  be  remedied 
was  the  clumsy  way  of  teaching  Latin.  So  Comenius  was 
little  understood.     His  books  were  seized  upon  as  affording 


COMENIUS.  159 


Mother-tongue.    Words  and  Things  Together. 

at  once  an  introduction  to  the  knowledge  of  things  and  a 
short  way  of  learning  Latin.  But  in  the  long  run  they  were 
found  more  tiresome  than  the  old  classics :  so  they  went  out 
of  fashion,  and  their  author  was  forgotten  with  them.  Now 
that  schoolmasters  are  forming  a  more  worthy  conception  of 
their  office,  they  are  beginning  to  do  justice  to  Comenius. 

§  54.  As  the  Jesuits  kept  to  Latin  as  the  common  lan- 
guage of  the  Church,  so  Comenius  thought  to  use  it  as  a 
means  of  inter-communication  for  the  instructed  of  every 
nationality.  But  he  was  singularly  free  from  over-estimating 
the  value  of  Latin,  and  he  demanded  that  all  nations  should 
be  taught  in  their  own  language  wherein  they  were  born. 
On  this  subject  he  expresses  himself  with  great  emphasis,  j 
"We  desire  and  protest  that  studies  of  wisdom  be  no  longer 
committed  to  Latin  alone,  and  kept  shut  up  in  the  schools, 
as  has  hitherto  been  done,  to  the  greatest  contempt  and  injury 
of  the  people  at  large,  and  the  popular  tongues.  Let  all 
things  be  delivered  to  each  nation  in  its  own  speech." 
{Delineatio  [Frodromus]  in  Masson  ut  suj>ra.) 

§  55.  Comenius  was  then  neither  a  verbalist  nor  a 
classicist,  and  yet  his  contemporaries  were  not  entirely 
wrong  in  thinking  of  him  as  "  a  man  who  had  invented  a  new 
way  of  learning  Latin."  His  great  principle  was  that  instruc- 
iQion  in  words  and  things  should  go  together.*  The  young 
were  to  learn  about  things,  and  at  the  same  time  were  to 
acquire  both  in  the  vernacular  and  also  in  Latin,  the  interna- 
tional tongue,  the  words  which  were  connected  with  the 
t  hings.    Having  settled  on  this  plan  of  concurrent  instruction 

•  Ruskin  seems  to  be  echoing  Comenius  (of  whom  perhaps  he  never 
heard)  when  he  says  "  To  be  taught  to  see  is  to  gain  word  and  thought 
ftt  once,  and  both  true."     (Address  at  Camb.  Sch.  of  Art ^  Oct  1858.) 


l60  COMENIUS. 


Janua  Linguarum. 


in  words  and  things,  Comenius  determined  to  write  a  book 
tor  carrying  it  out.  Just  then  there  fell  into  his  hands  a  book 
which  a  less  open-minded  man  might  have  thrown  aside  on 
account  of  its  origin,  for  it  was  written  by  the  bitter  foes  and 
persecutors  of  the  Bohemian  Protestants,  by  the  Jesuits.  But 
Comenius  says  truly,  "  I  care  not  whether  I  teach  or  whether 
I  learn,"  and  he  gave  a  marvellous  proof  of  this  by  adopting 
the  linguistic  method  of  the  Jesuits'  Janiia  Linguarum* 

*  As  far  as  my  experience  goes  there  are  few  men  capable  both  of 
teaching;  and  being  taught,  and  of  these  rare  beings  Comenius  was  a 
noble  example.  The  passage  in  which  he  acknowledges  his  obligation 
to  the  Jesuits'  Janua  is  a  striking  proof  of  his  candour  and  open- 
mindedness. 

As  an  experiment  in  language-teaching  \his  Janua  is  a  very  interesting 
book,  and  will  be  well  worth  a  note.  From  Augustin  and  Alois  de 
Backer's  Bibliothhjue  des  Ecrivains  de  la  C.  de  Jesus,  I  learn  that  the 
author  William  Bath  or  Bathe  [Latin  Bateus]  was  born  in  Dublin  in 
1564,  and  died  in  Madrid  in  1614.  "A  brief  introduction  to  the  skill 
of  song  as  set  forth  by  William  Bathe,  gent."  is  attributed  to  him  ;  but 
we  know  nothing  of  his  origin  or  occupation  till  he  entered  on  the  Jesuit 
noviciate  at  Tournai  in  1596.  Either  before  or  after  this  "  he  ran  "  as 
he  himself  tells  us  "the  pleasant  race  of  study"  at  Beauvais.  After 
studying  at  Padua  he  was  sent  as  Spiritual  Father  to  the  Irish  College 
at  Salamanca,  Here,  according  to  C.  Sommervogel  he  wrote  two 
Latin  books.  He  also  designed  i\ie  Janua  Linguarum,  and  carried  out 
the  plan  with  the  help  of  the  other  members  of  the  college.  The  book 
was  published  at  Salamanca  "apud  de  Cea  Tesa"  1611,4°.  Four 
years  afterwards  an  edition  with  English  version  added  was  published  in 
London  edited  by  Wm.  Welde.  I  have  never  seen  the  Spanish  version, 
but  a  copy  of  Welde's  edition  (wanting  title  page)  was  bequeathed  to  me 
by  a  friend  honoured  by  all  English-speaking  students  of  education, 
Joseph  Payne.  The  Janua  must  have  had  great  success  in  this  country, 
and  soon  had  other  editors.  In  an  old  catalogue  I  have  seen  *' Janua 
Linguarum  Quadrilinguis,  or  a  Messe  of  Tongues,  Latine,  English, 
French,  Spanish,  neatly  sorved  up  together  for  a  wholesome  repast  to 


COMENIUS.  l6l 


The  Jesuits'  Janua. 


This  "  Noah's  Ark  for  words,"  treated  in  a  series  of  proverbs 
of  all  kinds  of  subjects,  in  such  a  way  as  to  introduce  in  a 
natural  connection  every  common  word  in  the  Latin  lan- 
guage.    "  The  idea,"  says  Comenius,  "  was  better  than  the 


the  worthy  curiositie  of  the  stiidious,  sm.  4to,  Matthew  Lowndes,  1617." 
This  must  have  been  the  early  edition  of  Isaac  Habrecht.  I  have  his 
^^ Janua  Linguarum  Silinguis.  ArgentincB  (S\.r3iSsh\xrg),  1630,"  and  in 
the  Preface  he  says  that  the  first  English  edition  came  out  in  1615,  and 
that  he  ha  i  added  a  French  version  and  published  the  book  at  London 
in  four  languages  in  1617.  I  have  seen  "  sixth  edition  1627,"  also  pub- 
lished by  _K)wndes,  and  edited  "opera  I.  H.  (John  Harmar,  called  in 
Catalogue  of  British  Museum  '  Rector  of  Ewhurst')  Scholae  Sancti  Albani 
Magistri  primarii."  Harmar,  I  think,  suppressed  all  mention  of  the 
author  of  the  book,  but  he  kept  the  title.  This  seems  to  have  been 
altered  by  the  celebrated  Scioppius  who  published  the  book  as  Pascasii 
Grosippi  Mercurius  bilinguis. 

This  Jesuits'  Janua  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  experiments  in 
language  teaching  I  ever  met  with.  Bathe  and  his  co-adjutors  collected 
as  they  believed  all  the  common  root  words  in  the  Latin  language  ;  and 
these  they  worked  up  into  1,200  short  sentences  in  the  form  of  proverbs. 
After  the  sentences  follows  a  short  Appendix  De  ambiguis  of  which 
the  following  is  a  specimen  :  "  Dum  malum  comedis  juxta  malum  navis, 
de  malo  commisso  sub  malo  vetita  meditare.  While  thou  eatest  an 
apple  near  the  mast  of  a  ship,  think  of  the  evil  committed  under  the 
forbidden  apple  tree."  An  alphabetical  index  of  all  the  Latin  words  is 
then  given,  with  the  number  of  the  sentence  in  which  the  word  occure. 

Prefixed  to  \}s\\%  Janua  we  find  some  introductory  chapters  in  which  the 
problem  :  What  is  the  best  way  of  learning  a  foreign  language  ?  is  con- 
sidered and  some  advance  made  towards  a  solution.  "The  body  of  eveiy 
language  consisteth  of  four  principal  members — words,  congruity, 
phrases,  and  elegancy.  The  dictionary  sets  down  the  words,  grammar 
the  congruities,  Authors  the  phrases,  and  Rhetoricians  (with  their 
figures)  the  elegancy.  We  call  phrases  the  proper  torms  or  peculiar 
aianner?  nf  speaking  which  every  Tongue  hath."      (Chap.    I  ad   f.) 


1 62  COMENIUS. 


C.  adapts  Jesuits'  Janua. 


execution.  Nevertheless,  inasmuch  as  they  (the  Jesuils) 
were  the  prime  inventors,  we  thankfully  acknowledge  it,  nor 
will  we  upbraid  them  with  those  errors  they  have  committed." 
(Preface  to  Anchoran's  trans,  oi Janua.) 

§  56.  The  plan  commended  itself  to  Comenius  on  various 
grounds.  First,  he  had  a  notion  of  giving  an  outline  of  all 
knowledge  before  anything  was  taught  in  detail.     Next,  he 


Hitherto,  says  Bathe,  there  have  been  in  use,  only  two  ways  of  learning 
a  language,  '*  regular,  such  as  is  grammar,  to  observe  the  congruities ; 
and  irregular  such  as  is  the  common  use  of  learners,  by  reading  and 
speaking  in  vulgar  tongues."  The  "  regular  "  way  is  more  certain,  the 
"irregular"  is  easier.  So  Bathe  has  planned  a  middle  way  which  is  to 
combine  the  advantages  of  the  other  two.  The  "congruities"  are  learnt 
regularly  by  the  grammar.  Why  are  not  the  "words"  learned  regularly 
by  the  dictionary?  1st,  Because  the  Dictionary  contains  many  useless 
words ;  2nd,  because  compound  words  may  be  known  from  the  root 
words  without  special  learning  ;  3rd,  because  words  as  they  stand  in  the 
Dictionary  bear  no  sense  and  so  cannot  be  remembered.  By  the  use  of 
\!m.%  Janua  all  these  objections  will  be  avoided.  Useful  words  and  root 
words  only  are  given,  and  they  are  worked  up  into  sentences  "easy  to 
be  remembered."  And  with  the  exception  of  a  few  little  words  such  as 
et,  in,  qui,  sum,fio  no  word  occurs  a  second  time  ;  thus,  says  Bathe, 
the  labour  of  learning  the  language  will  be  lightened  and  "as  it  was 
much  more  easy  to  have  known  all  the  living  creatures  by  often  looking 
into  Noe's  Ark,  wherein  was  a  selected  couple  of  each  kind,  than  by 
travelling  over  all  the  world  until  a  man  should  find  here  and  there  a 
creature  of  each  kind,  even  in  the  same  manner  will  all  the  words  be 
far  more  easily  learned  by  use  of  these  sentences  than  by  hearing,  speak- 
ing or  reading  until  a  man  do  accidentally  meet  with  ^ery  particular 
word."  (Proeme  fli//.)  "  We  hope  no  man  will  be  so  ingrateful  as 
not  to  think  this  work  very  profitable,"  says  the  author.  For  my  own 
part  I  feel  grateful  for  such  an  earnest  attempt  at  "retrieving  of  the 
curse  of  Babylon,"  but  I  cannot  show  my  gratitude  by  declaring  "this 
work  very  profitable."  The  attempt  to  squeeze  the  greater  part  of  a 
language  into  1,200  short  sentences  could  produce  nothing  bet'er  than 


COMENIUS.  163 


Anchoran's  edition  of  C.'s  Janua. 

could  by  such  a  book  connect  the  teaching  about  simple 
things  with  instruction  in  the  Latin  words  which  applied  to 
them.  And  thirdly,  he  hoped  by  this  means  to  give  such  a 
complete  Latin  vocabulary  as  to  render  the  use  of  Latin  easy 
for  all  requirements  of  modern  society.  He  accordingly 
wrote  a  short  account  of  things  in  general,  which  he  put  in 
the  form  of  a  dialogue,  and  this  he  published  in  Latin  and 
German  at  Leszna  in  1531.  The  success  of  this  work,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  was  prodigious.  No  doubt  the  spirit 
which  animated  Bacon  was  largely  diffused  among  educated 
men  in  all  countries,  and  they  hailed  the  appearance  of  a 
book  which  called  the  youth  from  the  study  of  old  philo- 
sophical ideas  to  observe  the  facts  around  them. 

§  57.  The  countrymen  of  Bacon  were  not  backward 
in  adopting  the  new  work,  as  the  following,  from  the  title- 
page  of  a  volume  in  the  British  Museum,  will  show  :  "  The 
Gate  of  Tongues  Unlocked  and  Opened ;  or  else,  a  Seminary 
or  Seed-plot  of  all  Tongues  and  Sciences.  That  is,  a  short 
way  of  teaching  and  thoroughly  learning,  within  a  yeare  and 
a  half  at  the  furthest,  the  Latine,  English,  French  and  any 
other  tongue,  with  the  ground  and  foundation  of  arts  and 
sciences,  comprised  under  a  hundred  titles  and  1058  periods. 
In  Latin  first,  and  now,  as  a  token  of  thankfulness,  brought 
to  light  in  Latine,  English  and  French,  in  the  behalfe  of  the 
most  illustrious  Prince  Charles,  and  of  British,  French,  and 
Irish  youth.  The  4th  edition,  much  enlarged,  by  the  labour 
and  industry  of  John  Anchoran,  Licentiate  in  Divinity. 
London.  Printed  by  Edward  Griffin  for  Michael  Sparke, 
dweUing  at  the  Blew  Bible  in  Green  Arbor,  1639."  The 
first  edition  must  have  been  some  years  earlier,  and  the  work 

a  curiosity.  The  langtjage  could  not  be  thus  squeezed  into  the  memory 
oi  the  learner. 


1 64  COMENIUS. 


Change  to  be  made  by  Janua. 


contains  a  letter  to  Anchoran  from  Comenius  dated  "  Lessivae 
polonorura  (Leszna)  nth  Oct,  1632."  So  we  see  that, 
however  the  connexion  arose,  it  was  Anchoran  not 
HartHb  who  first  made  Comenius  known  in  England. 

§  58.  In  the  preface  to  the  volume  (signed  by  Anchoran 
and  Comenius)  we  read  of  the  complaints  of  "  Ascam,  Vives, 
Erasmus,  Sturmius,  Frisclinus,  Dornavius  and  others."  The 
Scaligers  and  Lipsius  did  cHmb  but  left  no  track.  "  Hence 
it  is  that  the  greater  number  of  schools  (howsoever  some 
boast  the  happinesse  of  the  age  and  the  splendour  of  learn- 
ing) have  not  as  yet  shaked  off  their  ataxies.  The  youth 
was  held  oflf,  nay  distracted,  and  is  yet  in  many  places 
delayed  with  grammar  precepts  infinitely  tedious,  perplexed, 
obscure,  and  (for  the  most  part)  unprofitable,  and  that  foi 
many  years."  The  names  of  things  were  taught  to  those 
who  were  in  total  ignorance  of  the  things  themselves. 

§  59.  From  this  barren  region  the  pupil  was  to  escape 
to  become  acquainted  with  things.  "  Come  on,"  says  the 
teacher  in  the  opening  dialogue,  "  let  us  go  forth  into  the 
open  air.  There  you  shall  view  whatsoever  God  produced 
from  the  beginning,  and  doth  yet  effect  by  nature.  After- 
wards we  will  go  into  towns,  shops,  schools,  where  you  shall 
see  how  men  do  both  apply  those  Divine  works  to  their  uses, 
and  also  instruct  themselves  in  arts,  manners,  tongues.  Then 
we  will  enter  into  houses,  courts,  and  palaces  of  princes,  to 
see  in  what  manner  communities  of  men  are  governed.  At 
last  we  will  visit  temples,  where  you  shall  observe  how 
diversely  mortals  seek  to  worship  their  Creator  and  to  be 
spiritually  united  unto  Him,  and  how  He  by  His  Ahnighti- 
ness  disposeth  all  things."  (This  is  from  the  1656  edition, 
by  "VV.D.") 

The  book  is  still  amusing,   but   only   from   the   quaint 


COMENIUS.  165 


Popularity  of  Janua  shortlived. 


manner  in  which  the  mode  of  life  two  hundred  years  ago  is 
described  in  it.* 

§  60.  But  though  parts  of  the  book  may  on  first  reading 
Lave  gratified  the  youth  of  the  seventeenth  century,  a  great 
deal  of  it  gave  scanty  information  about  difficult  subjects, 
such  as  physiology,  geometry,  logic,  rhetoric,  and  that  too 
in  the  driest  and  dullest  way.  Moreover,  in  his  first  version 
(much  modified  at  Saros-Patak)  Comenius  following  the 
Jesuit  boasts  that  no  important  word  occurs  twice  ;  so  that 
the  book,  to  attain  the  end  of  giving  a  perfect  stock  of  Latin 
words,  would  have  to  be  read  and  re-read  till  it  was  almost 
known  by  heart ;  and  however  amusing  boys  might  find  an 
account  of  their  toys  written  in  Latin  the  first  time  of  reading, 
the  interest  would  somewhat  wear  away  by  the  fifth  or  sixth 
time.  We  cannot  then  feel  much  surprised  on  reading  this 
"  general  verdict,"  written  some  years  later,  touching  those 
earlier  works  of  Comenius  :  "They  are  of  singular  use,  and 
very  advantageous  to  those  of  more  discretion  (especially  to 
such  as  have  already  got  a  smattering  in  Latin),  to  help 
their  memories  to  retain  what  they  have  scatteringly  gotten 
here  and  there,  and  to  furnish  them  with  many  words  which 
perhaps  they  had  not  formerly  read  or  so  well  observed ; 

*  This  book  must  have  had  a  great  sale  in  England.  Anchoran's 
version  (the  Latin  title  of  which  is  Fofia  not  Janua)  went  through 
several  editions.  I  have  a  copy  of  Janua  Linguarum  Reserata 
"  formerly  translated  by  Tho.  Horn :  afterwards  much  corrected  and 
amended  by  Joh.  Robotham  :  now  carefully  reviewed  and  exactly  com- 
pared with  all  former  editions,  foreign  and  others,  and  much  enlarged 
both  in  the  Latine  and  English  :  together  with  a  Portall  ...  by  G.  P. 
1647."  *'W.  D."  was  a  subsequent  editor,  and  finally  it  was  issued  by 
Roger  Daniel,  to  whom  Comenius  dedicates  from  Amsterdam  in  1659  as 
"Domino  Rogero  Danieli,  Bibliopolse  ac  Typographo  Londinensi 
celeberrimo."  Jj^^^    .c^^Uc<-    '^'-'^^^    -C\-a^.   \  . -^      -.•.v.     .0  M-r-fl.. 

I..     OJ        .      .J^   yX   ..4-  J..'        ■>4:.  ^     ^         ^      J_  ' 


lC6  COMENIUS. 


Lubinus  projector  of  Orbis  Pictus. 

but  to  young  children  (whom  we  have  chiefly  to  instruct, 
as  those  that  are  ignorant  altogether  of  most  things  and 
words),  they  prove  rather  a  mere  toil  and  burden  than  a 
delight  and  furtherance,"  (Chas.  Hoole's  preface  to  his  trans, 
of  Orl'is Pictus^  dated  "From  my  school  in  Lothbury, London, 
Jan.  25,  1658.") 

§  61.  The  ^^Janua"  would,  therefore,  have  had  but  a 
short-lived  popularity  with  teachers,  and  a  still  shorter  with 
learners,  if  Comenius  had  not  carried  out  his  principle  of 
appealing  to  the  senses,  and  adopted  a  plan  which  had  been 
suggested,  nearly  50  years  earlier,  by  a  Protestant  divine, 
Lubinus,*  of  Rostock.     The  artist  was  called  in,  and  with 


*  Eilhardus  Lubinus  or  Eilert  Lueben,  bom  1565  ;  was  Professor  first 
of  Poetry  then  of  Theology  at  Rostock,  where  he  died  in  1621.  This 
projector  of  the  most  famous  school-book  of  modem  times  seems  not  to 
be  mentioned  in  K.  A.  Schmid's  great  Encyklopddie,  at  least  in  the  first 
edition.  (I  have  not  seen  the  second.)  I  find  from  F.  Sander's  Lexikon 
d.  Pddagogik  that  Ratke  declared  he  learnt  nothing  from  Lubinus, 
while  Comenius  recognised  him  gratefully  as  his  predecessor.  This  is 
just  what  we  should  have  expected  from  the  character  of  Ratke  and  of 
Comenius.  Lubinus  advocated  the  use  of  interlinear  translations  and 
published  (says  Sander)  such  translations  of  the  New  Testament,  of 
Plautus,  &c.  The  very  interesting  Preface  to  the  New  Test.,  was 
translated  into  English  by  Hartlib  and  published  as  "  The  True  and 
Readie  Way  to  Learne  the  Latine  Tongue  by  E.  Lubinus,"  &c.,  1654. 
The  date  given  for  Lubinus'  preface  is  1614.  L.  finds  fault  with  the 
grammar  teaching  which  is  thrashed  into  boys  so  that  they  hate  their 
masters.  He  would  appeal  to  the  senses  :  "  For  from  these  things 
falling  under  the  sense  of  the  eyes,  and  as  it  were  more  known,  we  will 
make  entrance  and  begin  to  leara  the  Latin  speech.  Four-footed  living 
creatures,  creeping  things,  fishes  and  birds  which  can  neither  be  gotten 
nor  live  well  in  these  parts  ought  to  be  painted.  Others  also,  which 
because  of  their  bulk  and  greatness  cannot  be  shut  up  in  houses  may  be 
made  in  a  lesser  form,  or  drawn  with  the  pencil,  yet  of  such  bigness  as 


COMENIUS.  167 


Orbis  Pictus  described. 


Endter  at  Niirnberg  in  1657  was  published  the  first  edition 
of  a  book  which  long  outlived  the  Janua.     This  was  the      i 
famous  Orbis  Sensualium  Pictus,  which  was  used  for  a  cen-  \y 
tury  at  least  in  many  a  schoolroom,  and  lives  in  imitations 
to  the  present  day.     Comenius  wrote  this  book  on  the  same 
lines  as  th^  Janua,  but  he  goes  into  less  detail,  and  every 
subject  is  illustrated  by  a  small  engraving.      The  text  is 
mostly  on  the  opposite  page  to  the  picture,  and  is  connected 
with  it  by  a  series  of  corresponding  numbers.      Everything 
named  in  the  text  is  numbered  as  in  the  picture.     The  artist 
employed  must  have  been  a  bold  man,  as  he  sticks  at  nothing ;    . 
but  in  skill  he  was  not  the  equal  of  many  of  his  contem- 

they  may  be  well  seen  by  boys  even  afar  off."  He  says  he  has  often 
counselled  the  Stationers  to  bring  out  a  book  "in  which  all  things 
whatsoever  which  may  be  devised  and  written  and  seen  by  the  eyes, 
might  be  described,  so  as  there  might  be  also  added  to  all  things  and 
all  parts  and  members  of  things,  its  own  proper  word,  its  own  proper 
appellation  or  term  expressed  in  the  Latin  and  Dutch  tongues"  (pp. 
22,  23).  "Visible  things  are  first  to  be  known  by  the  eyes"  (p.  23), 
and  the  joining  of  seeing  the  thing  and  hearing  the  name  together  "is 
by  far  the  profitablest  and  the  bravest  course,  and  passing  fit  and  applic- 
able to  the  age  of  children."  Things  themselves  if  possible,  if  not, 
pictures  (p.  25).  There  are  some  capital  hints  on  teaching  children 
from  things  common  in  the  house,  in  the  street,  &c.  One  Hadrianus 
Junius  has  made  a  "nomenclator  "  that  may  be  useful.  In  the  pictures 
of  the  projected  book  there  are  to  be  lines  under  each  object,  and  under 
its  printed  name.  (The  excellent  device  of  corresponding  numbers 
seems  due  to  Comenius.)  For  printing  below  the  pictures  L.  also  suggests 
si-n'.ences  which  are  simpler  and  better  for  children  than  those  in  the 
V'estibulum,  e.g.  "  Panis  in  Mensa  positus  est,  Fells  vorat  Murem." 

In  the  Brit.  Mu.=eum  there  is  a  copy  of  Medulla  Linguce  Grcecce  in 
which  L.  works  up  the  root  words  of  Greek  into  sentences.  He  wa? 
evidently  a  man  with  ideas.  Comenius  thought  of  them  so  highly  that 
he  tried  to  carry  out  another  at  Saros-Patak,  the  plan  of  a  "Ccenobium" 
or  Roman  colony  in  which  no  language  should  be  used  but  Latin. 


l6'6  COMENIUS. 


Why  C.'s  schoolbooks  failed. 


poraries ;  witness  the  pictures  in  the  Schaffhausen  Janua 
(Editio  secunda,  SchaffhusI,  1658),  in  Daniel's  edition  of 
ih&/afiua,  1562,  and  the  very  small  but  beautiful  illustrations 
in  the  Vestibulum  of  "  Jacob  Redinger  and  J.  S."  (Amsterdam, 
1673).  However,  the  Orbis  Fictus  gives  such  a  quaint 
'delineation  of  life  200  years  ago  that  copies  with  the  original 
'  engravings  keep  rising  in  value,  and  an  American  publisher 
(Bardeen  of  Syracuse,  New  York),  has  lately  reproduced  the 
old  book  with  the  help  of  photography. 

§  62.  And  yet  as  instruments  of  teaching,  these  books, 
i.e.  the  Vestibulum  and  the  Janua  and  even  the  Orbis  Fictus 
which  in  a  great  measure  superseded  both,  proved  a  failure. 
How  shall  we  account  for  this  ? 

Comenius  immensely  over-estimated  the  importance  of 
knowledge  and  the  power  of  the  human  mind  to  acquire 
knowledge.  He  took  it  for  the  heavenly  idea  that  man 
should  know  all  things.  This  notion  started  him  on  the 
wrong  road  for  forming  a  scheme  of  instruction,  and  it  needed 
many  years  and  much  experience  to  show  him  his  error.  When 
he  wrote  the  Orbis  Fictus  he  -said  of  it :  "  It  is  a  little  book, 
as  you  see,  of  no  great  bulk,  yet  a  brief  of  the  whole  -world 
and  a  whole  language:"  (Hoole's  trans.  Preface);  and  he 
afterwards  speaks  of  "  this  our  little  encyclopadia  of  things 
subject  to  the  senses."  But  in  his  old  age  he  saw  that  his 
text-books  were  too  condensed  and  attempted  too  much 
(Laurie,  p.  59) ;  and  he  admitted  that  after  all  Seneca  was 
right:  "Melius  est  scire  pauca  et  iis  recte  uti  quam  scire 
multa,  quorum  ignores  usum.  It  is  better  to  know  a  few 
things  and  have  the  right  use  of  them  than  to  know  many 
things  which  you  cannot  use  at  all." 

§  63.  The  attempt  to  give  "information"  has  been  the 
ruin  of  a  vast  number  of  professing  educators  since  Comenius. 


COMENIUS.  169 


Compendia  Dispendia. 


Masters  "of  the  old  school"  whom  some  of  us  can  still 
remember  made  boys  learn  Latin  and  Greek  Grammar  and 
nothing  else.  Their  successors  seem  to  think  that  boys 
should  not  learn  Latin  and  Greek  Grammar  but  everything 
else :  and  the  last  error  I  take  to  be  much  worse  than  the 
first.  As  Ruskin  has  neatly  said,  education  is  not  teaching 
people  to  know  what  they  do  not  know,  but  to  behave  as 
they  do  not  behave.  It  is  to  be  judged  not  by  the  knowledge'  ' 
acquired,  but  the  habits,  powers,  interests :  knowledge  must 
be  thought  of  "last  and  least." 

§  64.  So  the  attempt  to  teach  about  everything  was 
unwise.  The  means  adopted  were  unwise  also.  It  is  a 
great  mistake  to  suppose  that  a  "general  view"  should  come 
.,  first ;  this  is  not  the  right  way  to  give  knowledge  in  any 
subject.  "  A  child  begins  by  seeing  bits  of  everything — here 
a  little  and  there  a  little ;  it  makes  up  its  wholes  out  of  its 
own  littles,  and  is  long  in  reaching  the  fulness  of  a  whole ; 
and  in  this  we  are  children  all  our  lives  in  much."  (Dr.  John 
Brown  in  Horce  Subsecivce,  p.  5.)  So  nothing  could  have 
been  much  more  unfortunate  than  an  attempt  to  give  the 
young  "  a  brief  of  the  whole  world."     Compendia,  dispendia. 

§  65.  Corresponding  to  "a  brief  of  the  whole  world," 
Comenius  offers  "  a  brief  of  a  whole  language."  The  two 
mistakes  were  well  matched.  In  "the  whole  world"  there 
are  a  vast  number  of  things  of  which  we  must,  and  a  good 
number  of  which  we  very  advantageously  may  be  ignorant. 
In  a  language  there  are  many  words  which  we  cannot  know 
and  many  more  which  we  do  not  want  to  know.  The 
language  lives  for  us  in  a  small  vocabulary  of  essential  words, 
and  our  hold  upon  the  language  depends  upon  the  power 
we  have  in  receiving  and  expressing  thought  by  means  of 
those  words.    But  the  Jesuit  Bath,  and  after  him  Comenius, 


170  COMENIUS. 


Comenius  and  Science  of  Education. 

made  the  tremendous  mistake  of  treating  all  Latin  words  as 
of  equal  value,  and  took  credit  for  using  each  word  once 
and  once  only  !  Moreover,  Comenius  wrote  not  simply  to 
teach  the  Latin  language,  but  also  to  stretch  the  Latin 
language  till  it  covered  the  whole  area  of  modern  life.  He 
aimed  at  two  things  and  missed  them  both. 

§  66.  We  see  then  that  Comenius  was  not  what  Hallam 
calls  him,  "a  man  who  invented  a  new  way  of  learning 
Latin."  He  did  not  do  this,  but  he  did  much  more  than 
this.  He  saw  that  every  human  creature  should  be  trained 
up  to  become  a  reasonable  being,  and  that  the  training 
should  be  such  as  to  draw  out  God -given  faculties.  Thus 
he  struck  the  key-note  of  the  science  of  education. 


The  quantity  and  the  diffuseness  of  the  writings  of  Comenius  are  truly 
bewildering.  In  these  days  eminent  men,  Carlyle,  e.g.,  sometimes  find 
it  difficult  to  get  into  print ;  but  printing-presses  all  over  Europe  seemed 
to  be  at  the  service  of  Comenius.  An  account  of  the  various  editions  of 
the ya««a  would  bean  interesting  piece  of  bibliography,  but  the  task 
of  making  it  would  not  be  a  light  one.  The  earliest  copy  of  which  I 
can  find  a  trace  is  entered  in  the  catalogue  of  the  Bodleian  :  "Comenius 
J.  K.  Janua  Linguaruw,  8vo,  Lips  (Leipzig)  1632."  I  also  find  there 
another  copy  entered  "  per  Anchoranum,  cum  clave  per  W.  Saltonstall, 
London,  1633." 

The  fame  of  Comenius  is  increasing  and  many  interesting  works  have 
now  been  written  about  him.  I  have  already  mentioned  the  English 
books  of  Benham  and  Laurie.  In  German  I  have  the  following  books, 
but  not  the  time  to  read  them  all : — 

Daniel,  H.  A.     Zerstreute  Blatter.     Halle,  1866. 

Free,  H.     Pddagogik  d.  Comenius.     Bernburg,  1884. 

Hiller,  R.  Latein  Methode  d.  /.  A.  Comenius.  Zschopau,  1883. 
(v.  g.  and  terse  ;  only  46  pp. ) 

Miiller,  Walter.  Comenius  ein  Systematiker  in  d.  Pad.  Dresden, 
1887. 

Pappenheim,  E.     Amos  Comenius.     Berlin,  187 1. 


COMENIUS.  171 


Books  on  Comenius. 


Seyffarth,  L.  W.  J.  A.  Comenius.  Leipzig,  2nd  edition,  1 87 1.  (A 
careful  and,  as  far  as  I  can  judge  in  haste,  an  excellent  piece  of  work.) 

Zoubek,  Fr.  J.  J.  A.  Comenius.  Eine  quellenmdssige  LebensskiLZf^ 
(Prefixed  to  trans,  oi  Didac.  M.  in  Richter's  Pdd.  Bibliothek.) 

For  a  Port -Royalist's  criticism  of  the  fauna,  see  infra,  (p.  185  ni)U.\ 


XI. 

THE  GENTLEMEN  OF  PORT-ROYAL* 


§  I.  In  the  sixteen-hundreds  by  far  the  most  successful 
schoolmasters  were  the  Jesuits.  In  spite  of  their  exclusion 
from  the  University,  they  had  in  the  Province  of  Paris  some 
14,000  pupils,  and  in  Paris  itself  at  the  College  de  Clermont, 
1,800.  Might  they  not  have  neglected  "the  Little  Schools," 
which  were  organized  by  the  friends  and  disciples  of  the 
Abbd  de  Saint-Cyran,  schools  in  which  the  numbers  were 
always  small,  about  twenty  or  twenty-five,  and  only  once 
increasing  to  fifty?  And  yet  the  Jesuits  left  no  stone 
unturned,  no  weapon  unemployed,  in  their  attack  on  "  the 
Little  Schools."  The  conflict  seems  to  us  like  an  engage- 
ment between  a  man-of-war  and  a  fishing-boat.  That  the 
poor  fishing-boat  would  soon  be  beneath  the  waves,  was 
clear  enough  from  the  beginning,  and  she  did  indeed 
speedily  disappear;  but  the  victors  have  never  recovered 
from  their  victory  and  never  will.  Whenever  we  think  of 
Jesuitism  we  are  not  more  forcibly  reminded  of  Loyola  than 
of  Pascal.  All  educated  Frenchmen,  most  educated  people 
everywhere,  get  their  best  remembered  impressions  of  the 
Society  of  Loyola  from  the  Provincial  Letters. t 


•  For  full  titles  of  the  books  referred  to  see  p.  195. 
t  The   solitaries  of  Port-Royal  used  to  vary  their  mental  toil  with 
iiunual.     A  Jesuit  having  maliciously  asked  whether  it  was  true  that 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS.  1 73 

The  Jesuits  and  the  Arnaulds. 


§  2.  The  Society  had  a  long  standing  rivalry  with  the 
University  of  Paris,  and  the  University  not  only  refused  to 
admit  the  Jesuits,  but  several  times  petitioned  the  Parliament 
to  chase  them  out  of  France,  On  one  of  these  occasions 
the  advocate  who  was  retained  by  the  University  was 
Antoine  Arnauld,  a  man  of  renowned  eloquence ;  and  he 
threw  himself  into  the  attack  with  all  his  heart.  From  that 
time  the  Jesuits  had  a  standing  feud  with  the  house  of 
Arnauld. 

§  3.  But  it  was  no  mere  personal  dislike  that  separated 
the  Port-Royalists  and  the  Jesuits.  Port-Royal  with  which 
the  Arnauld  family  was  so  closely  united,  became  the 
stronghold  of  a  theology  which  was  unlike  that  of  the 
Jesuits,  and  was  denounced  by  them  as  heresy.  The 
daughter  of  Antoine  Arnauld  was  made,  at  the  age  of  eleven 
years.  Abbess  of  Port-Royal,  a  Cistercian  convent  not  far  from 
Versailles.  This  position  was  obtained  for  her  by  a  fraud 
of  Marion,  Henry  IV's  advocate-general,  who  thought  only 
of  providing  comfortably  for  one  of  the  twenty  children  to 
whom  his  daughter,  Made.  Arnauld,  had  made  him  grand- 
father. Never  was  a  nomination  more  scandalously  obtained 
or  used  to  better  purpose.  The  M^re  Angdlique  is  one  of 
the  saints  of  the  universal  church,  and  she  soon  became  the 
restorer  of  the  religious  life  first  in  her  own  and  then  by  her 
influence  and  example  in  other  convents  of  her  Order. 

§  4.  In  these  reforms  she  had  nothing  to  fear  from  her 
hereditary  foes  the  Jesuits ;  but  she  soon  came  under  the 
influence  of  a  man  whose  theory  of  life  was  as  much  opposed 


Monsieur  Pascal  made  shoes,  met  with  the  awkward  repartee,  "  Je  ne 
sais  pas  s'il  fait  des  souliers,  mais  je  crois  qu'il  vous  a  porti  une  fameus* 

14 


174  THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


Saint-Cyran  and  Port- Royal. 


to  the  Jesuits'  theory  as  to  that  of  the  world  which  found  in 
the  Jesuits  the  most  accommodating  father  confessors. 

Duvergier  de  Hauranne  (1581-1643)  better  known  by 
the  name  of  his  "abbaye,"  Saint-Cyran,  was  one  of  those 
commanding  spirits  who  seem  born  to  direct  others  and 
form  a  distinct  society.  In  vain  Richeheu  offered  him  the 
posts  most  hkely  to  tempt  him.  The  prize  that  Saint-Cyran 
had  set  his  heart  upon  was  not  of  this  world,  and  Riche- 
lieu could  assist  him  in  one  way  only — by  persecution. 
This  assistance  the  Cardinal  readily  granted,  and  by  his 
orders  Saint-Cyran  was  imprisoned  at  Vincennes,  and  not 
set  at  liberty  till  Richelieu  was  himself  summoned  before  a 
higher  tribunal. 

§  5.  Driven  by  prevailing  sickness  from  Port-Royal  des 
Champs,  the  Mfere  Angelique  transported  her  community  (in 
1626)  to  a  house  purchased  for  them  in  Paris  by  her  mother 
who  in  her  widowhood  became  one  of  the  Sisters.  In  Paris 
Angelique  sought  for  herself  and  her  convent  the  spiritual 
direction  of  Saint-Cyran  (not  yet  a  prisoner),  and  from  that 
time  Saint-Cyran  added  the  Abbess  and  Sisters  of  Port-Royal 
to  the  number  of  those  who  looked  up  to  him  as  their 
pattern  and  guide  in  all  things. 

Port-Royal  des  Champs  was  in  course  of  time  occupied 
by  a  band  of  solitaries  who  at  the  bidding  of  Saint-Cyran 
renounced  the  world  and  devoted  themselves  to  prayer  and 
study.  To  them  we  owe  the  works  of  "  the  Gentlemen  of 
Port-Royal." 

§  6.  It  is  then  to  Saint-Cyran  we  must  look  for  the 
ideas  which  became  the  distinctive  mark  of  the  Port- 
Royalists. 

Saint-Cyran  was  before  all  things  a  theologian.  In  his 
early  days  at  Bayonne  his  studies  had  been  shared  by  a 


THE   PORT-ROYALISTS.  1/5 

Saint-Cyran  an  "  Evangelical.'* 

friend  who  afterwards  was  professor  of  theology  at  Louvain, 
and  then  Bishop  of  Ypres.  This  friend  was  Jansenius. 
Their  searches  after  truth  had  brought  them  to  opinions 
which  in  the  England  of  the  nineteenth  century  are  known 
as  '*  Evangelical."  According  to  "  Catholic "  teaching  all 
those  who  receive  the  creed  and  the  sacraments  of  the 
Church  and  do  not  commit  "  mortal "  sin  are  in  a  "  state  of 
salvation,"  that  is  to  say  the  great  majority  of  Christians  are 
saved.  This  teaching  is  rejected  by  those  of  another  school 
of  thought  who  hold  that  only  a  few  "  elect "  are  saved  and 
that  the  great  body  even  of  Christians  are  doomed  to 
perdition. 

§  7.  Such  a  belief  as  this  would  seem  to  be  associated 
of  necessity  with  harshness  and  gloom ;  but  from  whatever 
cause,  there  has  been  found  in  many,  even  in  most,  cases 
no  such  connexion.  Those  who  have  held  that  the  great 
mass  of  their  fellow-creatures  had  no  hope  in  a  future  world, 
have  thrown  themselves  lovingly  into  all  attempts  to  improve 
their  condition  in  this  world.  Still,  their  main  effort  has 
always  been  to  increase  the  number  of  the  converted  and  to 
preserve  them  from  the  wiles  of  the  enemy.  This  Saint- 
Cyran  sought  to  do  by  selecting  a  few  children  and  bringing 
them  up  in  their  tender  years  like  hot-house  plants,  in  the 
hope  that  they  would  be  prepared  when  older  and  stronger, 
to  resist  the  evil  influences  of  the  world. 

§  8.  His  first  plan  was  to  choose  out  of  all  Paris  six 
children  and  to  confide  them  to  the  care  of  a  priest  appointed 
to  direct  their  consciences,  and  a  tutor  of  not  more  than 
Iwenty-five  years  old,  to  teach  them  Latin.  "I  should 
think,"  says  he,  "it  was  doing  a  good  deal  if  I  did  not 
advance  them  far  in  Latin  before  the  age  of  twelve,  and 
made  them  pass  their  first  years  confined  to  one  house  or  a 


1/6  THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 

Short  career  of  the  Little  Schools. 

monastery  in  the  country  where  they  might  be  allowed  all  the 
pastimes  suited  to  their  age  and  where  they  might  see  only 
the  example  of  a  good  life  set  by  those  about  them." 
(Letter  quoted  by  Carrd,  p.  20.) 

§  9.  His  imprisonment  put  a  stop  to  this  plan,  "but," 
says  Saint-Cyran,  "  I  do  not  lightly  break  off  what  I  under- 
take for  God ;"  so  when  intrusted  with  the  disposal  of  2,000 
francs  by  M.  Bignon,  he  started  the  first  "  Little  School,"  in 
which  two  small  sons  of  M.  Bignon's  were  taken  as  pupils. 
The  name  of  "Little  Schools,"  was  given  partly  perhaps 
because  according  to  their  design  the  numbers  in  any  school 
could  never  be  large,  partly  no  doubt  to  deprecate  any 
suspicion  of  rivalry  with  the  schools  of  the  University.  The 
children  were  to  be  taken  at  an  early  age,  nine  or  ten,  before 
they  could  have  any  guilty  knowledge  of  evil,  and  Saint- 
Cyran  made  in  all  cases  a  stipulation  that  at  any  time  a 
child  might  be  returned  to  his  friends ;  but  in  cases  where 
the  master's  care  seemed  successful,  the  pupils  were  to  be 
kept  under  it  till  they  were  grown  up. 

§  10.  The  Little  Schools  had  a  short  and  troubled 
career  of  hardly  more  than  fifteen  years.  They  were  not 
fully  organized  till  1646;  they  were  proscribed  a  few  years 
later  and  in  1661  were  finally  broken  up  by  Louis  XIV,  who 
was  under  the  influence  of  their  enemies  the  Jesuits.  But 
in  that  time  the  Gentlemen  of  Port-Royal  had  introduced 
new  ideas  which  have  been  a  force  in  French  education  and 
indeed  in  all  literary  education  ever  since. 

To  Saint-Cyran  then  we  trace  the  attempt  at  a  particular 
kind  of  school,  and  to  his  followers  some  new  departures  in 
the  training  of  the  intellect. 

§  1 1.  Basing  his  system  on  the  Fall  of  Man,  Saint-Cyran 
came  to  a  conclusion  which  was  also  reached  by  Locke 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS.  177 

Saint  Cyran  &  Locke  on  Public  Schools. 

though  by  a  different  road.  To  both  of  them  it  seemed 
that  children  require  much  more  individual  care  and  watch- 
ing than  they  can  possibly  get  in  a  public  school.  Saint 
Cyran  would  have  said  what  I.ocke  said :  "  The  difference 
is  great  between  two  or  tliree  pupils  in  the  same  house  and 
three  or  four  score  boys  lodged  up  and  down :  for  let  the 
master's  industry  and  skill  be  never  so  great,  it  is  impossible 
he  should  have  fifty  or  one  hundred  scholars  under  his  eye 
any  longer  than  they  are  in  school  together :  Nor  can  it  be 
expected  that  he  should  instruct  them  successfully  in  any- 
thing but  their  books ;  the  forming  of  their  minds  and 
manners  [preserving  them  from  the  danger  of  the  enemy, 
Saint-Cyran  would  have  said]  requiring  a  constant  attention 
and  particular  application  to  every  single  boy,  which  is 
impossible  in  a  numerous  flock,  and  would  be  wholly  in 
vain  (could  he  have  time  to  study  and  correct  everyone's 
peculiar  defects  and  wrong  inclinations)  when  the  lad  was 
to  be  left  to  himself  or  the  prevailing  infection  of 
his  fellows  the  greater  part  of  the  four-and-twenty  hours," 
{Thoughts  c.  Ed.  §  70.) 

§  12.  An  English  public  schoolmaster  told  the  Com- 
mission on  Public  Schools,  that  he  stood  in  loco  parentis  to 
fifty  boys.  "Rather  a  large  family,"  observed  one  of  the 
Commissioners  drily.  The  truth  is  that  in  the  bringing- up 
of  the  young  there  is  the  place  of  the  schoolmaster  and  of 
the  school-fellows,  as  well  as  that  of  the  parents;  and  of 
these  several  forces  one  cannot  fulfil  the  functions  of  the 
others. 

§  13.  According  to  the  theory  or  at  least  the  practice  of 
English  public  schools,  boys  are  left  in  their  leisure  hours  to 
organize  their  life  for  themselves,  and  they  form  a  community 
from  which  the  masters  are,  partly  by  their  own  over-work. 


178  THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 

Shadow-side  of  Public  Schools. 

partly  by  the  traditions  of  the  school,  utterly  excluded.  From 
this  the  intellectual  education  of  the  boys  no  doubt  suffers. 
"Engage  them  in  conversation  with  men  of  parts  and 
breeding,"  says  Locke;  and  this  was  the  old  notion  ol 
training  when  boys  of  good  family  grew  up  as  pages  in  the 
household  of  some  nobleman.  But,  except  in  the  holidays, 
the  young  aristocrats  of  the  present  day  talk  only  with  other 
boys,  and  servants,  and  tradesmen.  Hence  the  amount  of 
thought  and  conversation  given  to  school  topics,  especially 
the  games,  is  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  importance  of  such 
things;  and  this  does  much  to  increase  what  Matthew 
Arnold  calls  "  the  barbarians' "  inaptitude  for  ideas. 

§  14.  What  are  we  to  say  about  the  eficcts  of  the  system 
on  the  morals  of  the  boys  ?  If  we  were  to  start  like  Saint- 
Cyran  from  the  doctrine  of  human  depravity,  we  should 
entirely  condemn  the  system  and  predict  from  it  the  most 
disastrous  results  ;*  but  from  experience  we  come  to  a  very 


•  A  master  in  a  great  public  school  once  stated  in  a  school  address 
what  masters  and  boys  felt  to  be  true.  "  It  would  hardly  be  too  much 
to  say  that  the  whole  problem  of  education  is  how  to  surround  the 
young  with  good  influences.  I  believe  we  must  go  on  to  add  that  if  the 
wisest  man  had  set  himself  to  work  out  this  problem  without  the  teach- 
ing of  experience,  he  would  have  been  little  likely  to  hit  upon  the  system 
of  which  we  are  so  proud,  and  which  we  call  "  the  Public  School 
Systi^m."  If  the  real  secret  of  education  is  to  surround  the  young  with 
good  influences,  is  it  not  a  strange  paradox  to  take  them  at  the  very  age 
when  influences  act  most  despotically  and  mass  them  together  in  large 
numbers,  where  much  that  is  coarsest  is  sure  to  be  tolerated,  and  much 
that  is  gentlest  and  most  refining— the  presence  of  mothers  and  sisters 
for  example— is  for  a  large  part  of  the  year  a  memory  or  an  echo  rather 
than  a  living  voice?  I  confess  I  have  never  seen  any  answers  to  this 
objection  which  apart  from  the  test  of  experience  I  should  have  been 
prepared  to  pronounce  satisfactory.     It  is  a  simple  truth  that  the  moral 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS.  1 79 

The  Little  Schools  for  the  few  only. 

different  conclusion.  Bishop  Dupanloup,  indeed,  spoke  of 
the  public  schools  of  France  as  "  ces  gouffres."  This  is  not 
what  is  said  or  thought  of  the  English  schools,  and  they  are 
filled  with  boys  whose  fathers  and  grandfathers  were  brought 
up  in  them,  and  desire  above  all  things  to  maintain  the  old 
traditions. 

§  15.  The  Little  Schools  of  Port-Royal  aimed  at  train- 
ing a  few  boys  very  differently ;  each  master  had  the  charge 
of  five  or  six  only,  and  these  were  never  to  be  out  of  his 
presence  day  or  night.* 

§  16.  It  may  reasonably  be  objected  that  such  schools 
would  be  possible  only  for  a  few  children  of  well-to-do  parents, 
and  that  men  who  would  thus  devote  themselves  could  be 
found  only  at  seasons  of  great  enthusiasm.  Under  ordinary 
circumstances  small  schools  have  most  of  the  drawbacks 
and  few  of  the  advantages  which  are  to  be  found  in  large 


dangers  of  our  Public  School  System  are  enormous.  It  is  the  simple 
truth  that  do  what  you  will  in  the  way  of  precaution,  you  do  give  to 
boys  of  low,  animal  natures,  the  very  boys  who  ought  to  be  exceptionally 
subject  to  almost  despotic  restraint,  exceptional  opportunities  of  exer- 
cising a  debasing  influence  over  natures  far  more  refined  and  spiritual 
than  their  own.  And  it  is  further  the  simple  but  the  sad  truth,  that 
these  exceptional  opportunities  are  too  often  turned  to  account,  and 
that  the  young  boy's  character  for  a  time — sometimes  for  a  long  time- 
is  spoiled  or  vulgarized  by  the  influence  of  unworthy  companions." 
This  is  what  public  schoolmasters,  if  their  eyes  are  not  blinded  by 
routine,  are  painfully  conscious  of.  But  they  find  that  in  the  end  good 
prevails ;  the  average  boy  gains  a  manly  character  and  contributes 
towards  the  keeping  up  a  healthy  public  opinion  which  is  of  great  effect 
in  restraining  the  evil-doer. 

•  "  The  number  of  boarders  was  never  very  great,  because  to  a  master 
were  assigned  no  more  than  he  could  have  beds  for  in  his  room." 
(Fontaine's  Mtmoire,  Carre,  p.  24.) 


l80  THE  PORT-ROYALTSTS. 

Advantages  of  great  schools. 

schools.  As  I  have  already  said,  parents,  schoolmasters, 
and  school-fellows  have  separate  functions  in  education ; 
and  even  in  the  smallest  school  the  master  can  never  take 
the  place  of  the  parent,  or  the  school  become  the  home. 
Children  at  home  enter  into  the  world  of  their  father  and 
mother;  the  family  friends  are  their  friends,  the  family 
events  affect  them  as  a  matter  of  course.  But  in  the  school, 
however  small,  the  children's  interests  are  unconnected  with 
the  master  and  the  master's  family.  The  boys  may  be  on 
the  most  intimate,  even  affectionate  terms  with  the  grown 
people  who  have  charge  of  them ;  but  the  mental  horizon  of 
the  two  parties  is  very  different,  and  their  common  area  of 
vision  but  small.  In  such  cases  the  young  do  not  rise  into 
the  world  of  the  adults,  and  it  is  almost  impossible  for  the 
adults  to  descend  into  theirs.  They  are  "  no  company  "  the 
one  for  the  other,  and  to  be  constantly  in  each  other's 
presence  would  subject  both  to  very  irksome  restraint. 
When  left  to  themselves,  boys  in  small  numbers  are  far 
more  likely  to  get  into  harm  than  boys  in  large  numbers. 
In  large  communities  even  of  boys,  "  the  common  sense  of 
most"  is  a  check  on  the  badly  disposed.  So  as  it  seems  to 
me  if  from  any  cause  the  young  cannot  live  at  home  and 
attend  a  day-school,  they  will  be  far  better  off  in  a  large 
boarding  school  than  in  one  that  would  better  fulfil  the 
requirements  of  Erasmus,*  Saint-Cyran,  and  Locke. 


•  "  Plerisque  placet  media  qusedam  ratio,  ut  apud  unum  Prsccej  1  Drem 
quinque  sexve  pueri  instituantur :  ita  nee  sodalitas  deerit  setati,  cui 
convenit  alacritas ;  neque  non  sufficiet  singulis  cura  Pr?eceptoris ;  at 
facile  vitabitur  corruptio  quam  affert  multitude.  Many  take  up  with  a 
middle  course,  and  would  have  five  or  six  boys  placed  with  one  pre- 
ceptor ;  in  this  way  they  will  not  be  without  companionship  at  an  age 
when  from  their  liveliness  they  seem  specially  to  need  it,  and  the  mastei 


THE   PORT-ROYALISTS,  l8l 

Choice  of  masters  &  servants.    Watch  &  pray. 

§  17.  As  Saint-Cyran  attributed  immense  importance  to 
tlie  part  of  the  master  in  education,  he  was  not  easily 
satisfied  with  his  qualifications.  "There  is  no  occupation 
in  the  Church  that  is  more  worthy  of  a  Christian  3  next  to 
giving  up  one's  life  there  is  no  greater  charity  .  .  .  The 
charge  of  the  soul  of  one  of  these  little  ones  is  a  higher 
employment  than  the  government  of  all  the  world."  (Cadet, 
2.)  So  thought  Saint-Cyran,  and  he  was  ready  to  go  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth  to  find  the  sort  of  teacher  he  wanted. 

§  18.  He  was  so  anxious  that  the  children  should  see 
only  that  which  was  good  that  the  servants  were  chosen  with 
peculiar  care. 

§  19.  For  the  masters  his  favourite  rule  was:  "Speak  I 
little  ;  put  up  with  much  ;  pray  still  more."  Piety  was  not 
to  be  instilled  so  much  by  precepts  as  by  the  atmosphere  in 
which  the  children  grew  up.  "  Do  not  spend  so  much  time 
in  speaking  to  them  about  God  as  to  God  about  them :"  so 
formal  instruction  was  never  to  be  made  wearisome.  But 
there  was  to  be  an  incessant  watch  against  evil  influences 
and  for  good.  "In  guarding  the  citadel,"  says  Lancelot, 
"we  fail  if  we  leave  open  a  single  gateway  by  which  the 
enemy  might  enter." 

§  20.  Though   anxious,  like  the   Jesuits,  to  make  their 
boys'  studies  "  not  only  endurable,  but  even  delightful,"  the 
Gentlemen  of  Port-Royal  banished  every  form  of  rivalry 
Each  pupil  was  to  think  of  one  whom  he  should  try  to  catch  |i 
up,  but  this  was  not  a  school-fellow,  but  his  own  higher  self,  his^| 


may  give  sufficient  care  to  each  individual ;  moreover,  there  will  be  an 
easy  avoidance  of  the  moral  corruption  which  numbers  bring. "  Erasmus 
on  Christian  Marriage  quoted  by  Coustel  in  Sainte-Beuve,  P.Riij,  bk. 
4.  p.  404- 


1 82  THE  PORT-ROYALISTS 

No  rivalry  or  pressure.    Freedom  from  routine. 

ideal.  Here  Pascal  admits  that  the  exclusion  of  competition 
had  its  drawbacks  and  that  the  boys  sometimes  became 
indifferent — "  tombent  dans  la  nonchalance,"  as  he  says. 

§  21.  As  for  the  instruction  it  was  founded  on  this 
principle :  the  object  of  schools  being  piety  rather  than 
knowledge  there  was  to  be  no  pressure  in  studying,  but  the 
children  were  to  be  taught  what  was  sound  and  enduring. 

§  22.  In  all  occupations  there  is  of  necessity  a  tradition. 
In  the  higher  callings  the  tradition  may  be  of  several  kinds. 
First  there  may  be  a  tradition  of  noble  thoughts  and  high 
ideals,  which  will  be  conveyed  in  the  words  of  the  greatest 
men  who  have  been  engaged  in  that  calling,  or  have  thought 
out  the  theory  of  it.  Next  there  will  be  the  tradition  of  the 
very  best  workers  in  it.  And  lastly  there  is  the  tradition  of 
the  common  man  who  learns  and  passes  on  just  the  ordinary 
views  of  his  class  and  the  ordinary  expedients  for  getting 
through  ordinary  work.  Of  these  different  kinds  of  tradition, 
the  school-room  has  always  shown  a  tendency  to  keep  to  this 
last,  and  the  common  man  is  supreme.  Young  teachers  are 
mostly  required  to  fulfil  their  daily  tasks  without  the 
smallest  preparation  for  them ;  so  they  have  to  get  through 
as  best  they  can,  and  have  no  time  to  think  of  any  high 
ideal,  or  of  any  way  of  doing  their  work  except  that  which 
gives  them  least  trouble.  "Practice  makes  perfect,"  says 
the  proverb,  but  it  would  be  truer  to  say  that  practice  in 
doing  work  badly  soon  makes  perfect  in  contentment  with 
bad  workmanship.  Thus  it  is  that  the  tradition  of  the 
school-room  settles  down  for  the  most  part  into  a  deadly 
routine,  and  teachers  who  have  long  been  engaged  in  carry- 
ing it  on  seem  to  lose  their  powers  of  vision  like  horses  who 
lurn  mills  in  the  dark. 

The  Gentlemen  of  Port-Royal  worked  free  from  school- 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS.  1 83 

Study  a  delight.    Reading  French  first. 

room  tradition.  "If  the  want  of  emulation  was  a  drawback," 
says  Sainte-Beuve,  "  it  was  a  clear  gain  to  escape  from  all 
routine,  from  all  pedantry.  La  crasse  et  la  morgue  des 
rigents  rCen  approchaient pas"  {P.R.  vol.  iij,  p.  414  )  Piety 
as  we  have  seen  was  their  main  object.  Next  to  it  they 
wished  to  "  carry  the  intellects  of  their  puj)ils  to  the  highest 
point  they  could  attain  to." 

§  23.  In  doing  this  they  profited  by  their  freedom  from 
routine  to  try  experiments.  They  used  their  own  judgments 
and  sought  to  train  the  judgment  of  their  pupils.  Them- 
selves knowing  the  delights  of  literature,  they  resolved  that 
their  pupils  should  know  them  also.  They  would  banish  all 
useless  difficulties  and  do  what  they  could  to  "help  the 
young  and  make  study  even  more  pleasant  to  them  than  play 
and  pastime."  (Preface  to  Cic's  Bi/lets,  quoted  by  Sainte- 
Beuve,  vol.  iij,  p.  423.) 

§  24.  One  of  their  innovations,  though  startling  to  their 
contemporaries,  does  not  seem  to  us  very  surprising.  It 
was  the  custom  to  begin  reading  with  a  three  or  four  years' 
course  of  reading  Latin,  because  in  that  language  all  the 
letters  were  pronounced.  The  connexion  between  sound 
and  sense  is  in  our  days  not  always  thought  of,  but  even 
among  teachers  no  advocates  would  now  be  found  for  the 
old  method  which  kept  young  people  for  the  first  three  or 
four  years  uttering  sounds  they  could  by  no  possibility 
understand.  The  French  language  might  have  some  dis- 
advantage from  its  silent  letters,  but  this  was  small  compared 
with  the  disadvantage  felt  in  Latin  from  its  silent  sense. 
So  the  Port-Royalists  began  reading  with  French. 

§  25.  Further  than  this,  they  objected  to  reading  through 
spelling,  and  pointed  out  that  as  consonants  cannot  be 
pronounced  by  themsfelves  they  should  be  taken  only  in 


1 84  THE   PORT-ROYALISTS. 

Literature.    Mother-tongue  first. 

connexion  with  the  adjacent  vowel.  Pascal  applied  himself 
to  the  subject  and  invented  the  method  described  in  the 
6th  chap,  of  the  General  Grammar  (Carr^,  p.  xxiij)  and 
introduced  by  his  sister  Jacqueline  at  Port-Royal  des 
Champs. 

§  26.  When  the  child  could  read  French,  the  Gentlemen 
of  Port-Royal  sought  for  him  books  within  the  range  of  his 
intelligence.  There  was  nothing  suitable  in  French,  so  they 
set  to  work  to  produce  translations  in  good  French  of  the 
most  readable  Latin  books,  "  altering  them  just  a  little — en 
y  changeant  fort  peu  de  chose"  as  said  the  chief  translator 
De  Saci,  for  the  sake  of  purity.  In  this  way  they  gallicised 
the  Fables  of  Phaedrus,  three  Comedies  of  Terence,  and 
the  Familiar  Letters  {Bilkts)  of  Cicero. 

§  27.  In  this  we  see  an  important  innovation.  As  I 
have  tried  to  explain  {supra  pp.  14  ff.)  the  efifect  of  the 
Renascence  was  to  banish  both  the  mother-tongue  and 
literature  proper  from  the  school-room ;  for  no  language  was 
tolerated  but  Latin,  and  no  literature  was  thought  possible 
except  in  Latin  or  Greek.  Before  any  literature  could  be 
known,  or  indeed,  instruction  in  any  subject  could  be  given, 
the  pupils  had  to  learn  Latin.  This  neglect  of  the  mother- 
tongue  was  one  of  the  traditional  mistakes  pointed  out  and 
abandoned  by  the  Port-Royalists.  "People  of  quality 
complain,"  says  De  Saci,  "  and  complain  with  reason,  that 
in  giving  their  children  Latin  we  take  away  French,  and  to 
turn  them  into  citizens  of  ancient  Rome  we  make  them 
strangers  in  their  native  land.  After  learning  Latin  and 
Greek  for  10  or  12  years,  we  are  often  obliged  at  the  age  of 
30  to  learn  French."  f Cadet,  10.)  So  Port-Royal  proposed 
breaking  through  this  bondage  to  Latin,  and  laid  down  the 
principle,   new  in   France,   though  not   in  the  country  of 


THE   PORT-ROYALISTS.  1 85 

Beginners'  difficulties  lightened. 

Mulcaster  or  of  Ratke,  that  everything  should  be  tauglit 
through  the  mother-tongue. 

Next,  the  Port-Royahsts  sought  to  give  their  pupils  an 
early  and  a  pleasing  introduction  to  literature.  The  best 
literature  in  those  days  was  the  classical ;  and  suitable  works 
from  that  literature  might  be  made  intelligible  by  means  oj 
translations.  In  this  way  the  Port-Royalists  led  their  pupils 
to  look  upon  some  of  the  classical  authors  not  as  inventors 
of  examples  in  syntax,  but  as  writers  of  books  that  meant 
something.  And  thus  both  the  mother-tongue  and  literature 
were  brought  into  the  school-room. 

§  28.  When  the  boys  had  by  this  means  got  some 
feeling  for  literature  and  some  acquaintance  with  the  world 
of  the  ancients,  they  began  the  study  of  Latin.  Here  again 
all  needless  difficulties  were  taken  out  of  their  way.  No 
attempt  indeed  was  made  to  teach  language  without  grammar, 
the  rationale  of  language,  but  the  science  of  grammar  was 
reduced  to  first  principles  (set  forth  in  the  Grammairt 
Gen'erale  et  Raisonn^e  of  Arnauld  and  Lancelot),  and  the 
special  grammar  of  the  Latin  language  was  no  longer  taught 
by  means  of  the  work  established  in  the  University,  the 
Latin  Latin  Grammar  of  Despautere,  but  by  a  "New  Method" 
written  in  French  which  gave  essentials  only  and  had  for  its 
motto  :  "  Mihi  inter  virtutes  grammatici  habebitur  aliqua 
nescire — To  me  it  will  be  among  the  grammarian's  good 
points  not  to  know  everything."     (Quintil.)* 

*  Lancelot's  "New  way  of  easily  learning  Latin  {Nouvelle  Methode 
four  apprendre facilement  la  langue  Latine)"  was  published  in  1644,  his 
nietliod  for  Greek  in  1655,  This  was  followed  in  1657  by  his  "Garden 
of  Greek  Roots  {Jardin  des  racines grecq-ues)"  (see  Cadet,  pp.  15  fT.) 

The  Port- Royalists  seem  to  me  in  some  respects  far  behind  Comeniu-s, 
but  they  were   right  in  rejecting  him  as  a  meth.~'diser  in  language* 


1 86  THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 

Begin  with  Latin  into  Mother-tongue. 

§  29.  With  this  minimum  of  the  essentials  of  tlie 
grammar  and  with  a  previous  acquaintance  with  the  sense  of 
the  book  the  pupils  were  introduced  to  the  Latin  languaee 
and  were  taught  to  translate  a  Latin  author  into  French. 
This  was  a  departure  from  the  ordinary  route,  which  after  a 
course  of  learning  grammar-rules  in  Latin  went  to  the 
"  theme,"  /.<?.,  to  composition  in  Latin. 

The  art  of  translating  into  the  mother-tongue  was  made 
much  of.  School  "  construes,"  which  consist  in  substituting 
a  word  for  a  word,  were  entirely  forbidden,  and  the  pupils 
had  to  produce  the  old  writer's  thoughts  in  French* 


learning.  Lancelot  in  the  preface  to  his  "Garden  of  Greek  Roots," 
says  that  the  Janua  of  Comenius  is  totally  wanting  in  method.  "  It 
would  need,"  says  he,  "an  extraordinary  memory;  and  from  my  ex- 
perience I  should  say  that  few  children  could  learn  this  book,  for  it  is 
long  and  difficult ;  and  as  the  words  in  it  are  not  repeated,  those  at  the 
beginning  would  be  forgotten  before  the  learner  reached  the  end.  So 
he  would  feel  a  constant  discouragement,  because  he  would  always  find 
himself  in  a  new  country  where  he  would  recognize  nothing.  And  the 
book  is  full  of  all  sorts  of  uncommon  and  difficult  words,  and  the  first 
chapters  throw  no  light  on  those  which  follow."  To  this  well-grounded 
criticism  he  adds  :  "  The  entrances  to  the  Tongues,  to  deserve  its  name, 
should  be  nothing  but  a  short  and  simple  way  leading  us  as  soon  as 
possible  to  read  the  best  books  in  the  language,  so  that  we  might  not 
only  acquire  the  words  we  are  in  need  of,  but  also  all  that  is  most 
characteristic  in  the  idiom  and  pure  in  the  phraseology,  which  make  up 
the  most  difficult  and  most  important  part  of  every  language."  (Quoted 
by  Cadet,  p.  17). 

*  Lemaitre,  a  nephew  of  La  Mire  Angelique,  was  one  of  the  most 
celebrated  orators  in  France.  In  renouncing  the  world  for  Port-Royal, 
he  retired  from  a  splendid  position  at  the  Bar.  Such  men  had  qualifi- 
cations out  of  the  reach  of  ordinary  schoolmasters.  Dufosse,  in  after 
years,  told  how,  when  he  was  a  boy,  Lemaitre  called  him  often  to  his 
room  and  gave  him  solid  instruction  in  learning  and  piety.     "  He  read 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS.  187 

Sense  before  Sound.    Reason  must  rule. 

§  30.  From  this  we  see  that  the  training  was  literary 
But  in  the  study  of  form  the  Port-Royalists  did  not  neglect 
the  inward  for  the  outward.  Their  great  work,  which  still 
stands  the  attacks  of  time,  is  the  Port -Royal  Logic,  or  the 
A  rt  of  Thinking  {see  Trans,  by  T.  Spencer  Baynes,  1850). 
This  was  substantially  the  work  of  Arnauld ;  and  it  was 
Arnauld  who  led  the  Port-Royalists  in  their  rupture  with  the 
philosophy  of  the  Middle  Age,  and  who  openly  followed 
Descartes.  In  the  Logic  we  find  the  claims  of  reason 
asserted  as  if  in  defiance  of  the  Jesuits.  "  It  is  a  heavy 
bondage  to  think  oneself  forced  to  agree  in  everything  with 
Aristotle  and   to   take   him   as   the   standard   of  truth  in 

philosophy The   world   cannot   long  continue  in 

this  restraint,  and  is  recovering  by  degrees  its  natural  and 
reasonable  liberty,  which  consists  in  accepting  that  which 
we  judge  to  be  true  and  rejecting  that  which  we  judge  to  be 
false."     (Quoted  by  Cadet,  p.  31.)* 


to  me  and  made  me  read  pieces  from  poets  and  orators,  and  saw  that 
I  noticed  the  beauties  in  them  both  in  thought  and  diction.  Moreover 
he  taught  me  the  right  emphasis  and  articulation  both  in  verse  and 
prose,  in  which  he  himself  was  admirable,  having  the  charm  of  a  fine 
voice  and  all  else  that  goes  to  make  a  great  orator.  He  gave  me  also 
many  rules  for  good  translation  and  for  making  my  progress  in  that  art 
easy  to  me. "  (Dufosse's  Memoires,  Qr'c.,  quoted  by  Cadet,  p.  9. )  It  was 
Lemaltre  who  instructed  Racine  (born  1639,  admitted  at  Les  Granges, 
Port  Royal  des  Champs,  in  1655). 

*  In  1 6  70  the  General  of  the  J  esuits  issued  a  letter  to  the  Society  against 
Ihe  Cartesian  philosophy.  The  University  in  this  agreed  with  its  rivals, 
and  petitioned  the  Parliament  to  prohibit  the  Cartesian  teaching.  This 
produced  the  burlesque  Arrit  by  Boileau  (1675).  "Whereas  it  is  stated 
that  for  some  years  past  a  stranger  named  Reason  has  endeavoured  to 
make  entry  by  force  into  the  Schools  of  the  University  .  .  .  where 
Aristotle  has  always  been  acknowledged  as  judge  without  appeal  and 


l8i?  THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


Not  Baconian.    The  body  despised. 

§  31.  To  mark  the  change,  the  Port-Royalists  called 
their  book  not  "  the  Art  of  Reasoning,"  but  "  the  Art  of 
Thinking,"  and  it  was  in  this  art  of  thinking  that  thoy 
endeavoured  to  train  their  scholars.  They  paid  great 
attention  to  geometry,  and  Arnauld  wrote  a  book  ("  New 
Elements  of  Geometry  ")  which  so  well  satisfied  Pascal  that 
after  reading  the  MS.  he  burnt  a  similar  work  of  his  own. 

§  32.  The  Port-Royalists  then  sought  to  introduce  into 
the  school-room  a  "sweet  reasonableness."  They  were  not 
touched,  as  Comenius  was,  by  the  spirit  of  Bacon,  and  knew 
nothing  of  a  key  for  opening  the  secrets  of  Nature.  They 
loved  literature  and  resolved  that  their  pupils  should  love  it 
also ;  and  with  this  end  they  would  give  the  first  notions  of 
it  in  the  mother-tongue;  but  the  love  of  literature  still 
bound  them  to  the  past,  and  they  aimed  simply  at  making 
the  best  of  the  Old  Education  without  any  thought  of  a 
New. 

§  33.  In  one  respect  they  seem  less  wise  than  Rabelais 
and  Mulcaster,  less  wise  perhaps  than  their  foes  the  Jesuits. 
They  gave  little  heed  to  training  the  body,  and  thought  of 
the  soul  and  the  mind  only ;  or  if  they  thought  of  the  body 
they  were  concerned  merely  that  it  should  do  no  harm. 
"  Not  only  must  we  form  the  minds  of  our  pupils  to  virtue,'* 

not  accountable  for  his  opinions  ...  Be  it  known  by  these  presents 
that  this  Court  has  maintained  and  kept  and  does  maintain  and  keep 
the  said  Aristotle  in  perfect  and  peaceable  possession  of  the  said  schools 
.  .  .  and  in  order  that  for.  the  future  he  may  not  be  interfered  with  in 
them,  it  has  banished  Reason  for  ever  from  the  Schools  of  the  said 
University,  and  forbids  his  entry  to  disturb  and  disquiet  the  said 
Aristotle  in  the  possession  and  enjoyment  of  the  aforesaid  schools,  under 
pain  and  penalty  of  being  declar^  a  Jansenist  and  a  lover  of  innova* 
tions."    (Quoted  by  Cadet,  p.  34.) 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS.  189 

Pedagogic  writings  of  Port- Royalists. 

says  Nicole,  "  we  must  also  bend  their  bodies  to  it,  that  is, 
we  must  endeavour  that  the  body  do  not  prove  a  hin- 
drance to  their  leading  a  well-regulated  life  or  draw  th^m  by 
its  weight  to  any  disorder.  For  we  should  know  that  as 
men  are  made  up  of  mind  and  body,  a  wrong  turn  given  to 
the  body  in  youth  is  often  in  after  life  a  great  hindrance  to 
piety."  ( Vues  p.  biett  klever  un  prince,  quoted  by  Cadet, 
p.  206.) 

§  34.  But  let  us  not  underrate  the  good  effect  produced 
by  this  united  effort  of  Christian  toil  and  Christian  thought. 
"Nothing  should  be  more  highly  esteemed  than  good  sense," 
(Preface  to  the  Logique),  and  Port-Royal  did  a  great  work 
in  bringing  good  sense  and  reason  to  bear  on  the  practice 
of  the  school-room.  When  the  Little  Schools  were  dispersed 
the  Gentlemen  still  continued  to  teach,  but  the  lessons  they 
gave  were  now  in  the  "  art  of  thinking  "  and  in  the  art  of 
teaching ;  and  all  the  world  might  learn  of  them,  for  they 
taught  in  the  only  way  left  open  to  them ;  they  published 
books. 

§  35-  Of  these  writers  on  pedagogy  the  most  distin- 
guished was  "the  great  Arnauld,"  i.e.,  Antoine  Arnauld, 
( 161 2-1694)  brother  of  the  Mere  Angelique.  His  "Reglement 
des  Atudts "  shows  us  how  literary  instruction  was  given  at 
Port-Royal.  In  these  directions  we  have  not  so  much  the 
rules  observed  in  the  Little  Schools  as  the  experience  of  the 
Little  Schools  rendered  available  for  the  schools  of  the 
University.  On  this  account  Sainte-Beuve  speaks  of  the 
J^^glement  of  Arnauld  as  forming  a  preface  to  the  Treatise 
on  Studies  {Traite  des  Atudes)  of  RoUin.  In  the  Rlglement 
we  see  Arnauld  yielding  to  what  seems  a  practical  necessity 
and  admitting  competition  and  prizes.  Some  excellent 
advice  is  given,  especially  on  practice  in  the  use  of  the 
IS 


190  THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 

Arnauld.    Nicole. 

mother-tongue.  The  young  people  are  to  question  and 
answer  each  other  about  the  substance  of  what  they  have 
read,  about  the  more  remarkable  thoughts  in  their  author  or 
the  more  beautiful  expressions.  Each  day  two  of  the  boys 
are  to  narrate  a  story  which  they  themselves  have  selected 
from  a  classical  author.* 

§  36.  With  the  notable  exception  of  Pascal,  Arnauld 
was  the  most  distinguished  writer  among  the  Gentlemen  01 
Port-Royal.  A  writer  less  devoted  to  controversy  than 
Arnauld,  less  attached  to  the  thought  of  Saint-Cyran  and  of 
Descartes,  but  of  wider  popularity,  was  Nicole,  who  had 
Made,  de  S^vign^  for  an  admirer,  and  Locke  for  one  of  his 
translators. 

Nicole  has  given  us  a  valuable  contribution  to  pedagogy 
in  his  essay  on  the  right  bringing-up  of  a  prince.  (  Vues 
ghi'erales pour  bien  'elever  un prince.)  In  this  essay  he  shows 
us  with  what  thought  and  care  he  had  applied  himself  to 
the  art  of  instruction,  and  he  gives  us  hints  that  -all  teachers 
may  profit  by.     Take  the  following : — 

§  37.  "  Properly  speaking  it  is  not  the  masters,  it  is  no 
instruction  from  without,  that  makes  things  understood ;  at 
the  best  the  masters  do  nothing  but  expose  the  things  to  the 
interior  light  of  the  mind,  by  which  alone  they  can  be 
understood.  It  follows  that  where  this  light  is  wanting 
instruction  is  as  useless  as  trying  to  shew  pictures  in  the 
dark.  The  very  greatest  minds  are  nothing  but  lights  in 
confinement,  and  they  have  always  sombre  and  shady  spots  ; 
but  in  children  the  mind  is  nearly  full  of  shade  and  emits 


•  Although  so  much  time  is  given  to  the  study  of  words,  practice  in 
the  use  of  words  is  almost  entirely  neglected,  and  the  English  schoolboy 
remains  inarticulate. 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS.  I9I 

Light  from  within.    Teach  by  the  Senses. 

but  little  rays  of  light.  So  everything  depends  on  making 
the  most  of  these  rays,  on  increasing  them  and  exposing  to 
them  what  one  wishes  to  have  understood.  For  this  reason 
jt  is  hard  to  give  general  rules  for  instructing  anyone, 
because  the  instruction  must  be  adapted  to  the  mixture  ot 
light  and  darkness,  which  differs  widely  in  different  minds, 
especially  with  children.  We  must  look  where  the  day  is 
breaking  and  bring  to  it  what  we  wish  them  to  understand ; 
and  to  do  this  we  must  try  a  variety  of  ways  for  getting  at 
their  minds  and  must  persevere  with  such  as  we  find  have 
most  success. 

"  But  generally  speaking  we  may  say  that,  as  in  children 
the  light  depends  greatly  on  their  senses,  we  should  as  far 
as  possible  attach  to  the  senses  the  instruction  we  give 
them,  and  make  it  enter  not  only  by  the  ear  but  also  by  the 
sight,  as  there  is  no  sense  which  makes  so  lively  an  impres- 
sion on  the  mind  and  forms  such  sharp  and  clear  ideas." 

This  is  excellent.  There  is  a  wise  proverb  that  warns  us 
that  ^  however  soon  we  get  up  in  the  morning  the  sunrise 
comes  never  the  earHer."  A  vast  amount  of  instruction  is 
thrown  away  because  the  instructors  will  not  wait  for  the 
day-break. 

§  38.  For  the  moral  training  of  the  young  there  is  one 
qualification  in  the  teacher  which  is  absolutely  indispensable 
— goodness.  Similarly  for  the  intellectual  training,  there  is 
an  indispensable  qualification — intelligence.  This  is  the 
qualification  required  by  the  system  of  Port-Royal,  but  not 
required  in  working  the  ordinary  machinery  of  the  school- 
room either  in  those  days  or  in  ours.  When  Nicole  has 
described  how  instruction  should  be  given  so  as  to  train  the 
judgment  and  cultivate  the  taste,  he  continues : 

"  As  this  kind  of  instruction  comes  without  observation, 


192  THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 


Best  teaching  escapes  common  tests. 

so  is  the  profit  derived  from  it  likely  to  escape  observation 
also  ;  that  is,  it  will  not  announce  itself  by  anything  on  the 
surface  and  palpable  to  the  common  man.  And  on  Ihij 
account  persons  of  small  intelligence  are  mistaken  about  it 
and  think  that  a  boy  thus  instructed  is  no  better  than 
another,  because  he  cannot  make  a  better  translation  from 
Latin  into  French,  or  beat  him  in  saying  his  Virgil.  Thus 
judging  of  the  instruction  by  these  trifles  only,  they  often 
make  less  account  of  a  really  able  teacher  than  of  one  of 
little  science  and  of  a  mind  without  light."  (Nicole  in 
Cadet,  p.  204;  Carrd,  p.  187.) 

In  these  days  of  marks  and  percentages  we  seem  agreed 
that  it  must  be  all  right  if  the  children  can  stand  the  tests 
of  the  examiner  or  the  inspector.  Something  may  no  doubt 
be  got  at  by  these  tests ;  but  we  cannot  hope  for  any  genuine 
care  for  education  while  everything  is  estimated  "/atr  des 
signes  grossiers  et  exterieurs." 

§  39.  Whatever  was  required  to  adapt  the  thought  of  Port- 
Royal  to  the  needs  of  classical  schools,  especially  the  schools 
of  the  University  of  Paris  was  suppHed  by  Rollin  (1661- 
1741)  whose  Trait'e  des  Etudes  or  "Way  of  teaching  and 
studying  Literature,"  united  the  lessons  of  Port-Royal  with 
much  material  drawn  from  his  own  experience  and  from  his 
acquaintance  with  the  writings  of  other  authors,  especially 
Quintilian  and  Seneca.  Having  been  twice  Rector  of  the 
University  (in  1694  and  1695)  Rollin  had  managed  to  bring 
into  the  schools  much  that  was  due  to  Port-Royal ;  and  in 
his  Trait'e  he  has  the  tact  to  give  the  improved  methods  as 
the  ordinary  practice  of  his  colleagues. 

§  40.  Much  that  Rollin  has  said  applies  only  to  classical 
or  at  most  to  literary  instruction ;  but  some  of  his  advice 
will  be  good  for  all  teachers  as  long  as  the  human  mind 


THE  PORT-ROYALISTS.  I93 

Studying  impossible  without  a  will. 

needs  instruction.  I  have  met  with  nothing  that  seems  to 
me  to  go  more  truly  to  the  very  foundation  of  the  art  of 
teaching  than  the  following  : 

"  We  should  never  lose  sight  of  this  grand  principle  that 
siUDV  DEPENDS  ON  THE  WILL,  and  the  will  does  not  endure  Xf- 
constraint :     '  Studmm  discendi  voluntate  quce  cogi  non  potest^ 
constat.^    (Quint,  j,  i,  cap.  3.)*     We  can,  to  be  sure,  put 
constraint  on  the  body  and  make  a  pupil,  however  unwilling, 
stick  to  his  desk,  can  double  his  toil  by  punishment,  compel 

*  Rollin  somewhat  extends  Quintilian's  statement :  "  The  desire 
of  learning  rests  in  the  will  which  you  cannot  force. "  About  attempts 
to  coerce  the  will  in  the  absence  of  interest,  I  may  quote  a  passage 
from  a  lecture  of  mine  at  Birmingham  in  1884,  when  I  did  not  know 
that  I  had  behind  me  such  high  authorities  as  Quintilian  and  Rollin : 
"  I  should  divide  the  powers  of  the  mind  that  may  be  cultivated  in  the 
school-room  into  two  classes :  in  the  first  I  should  put  all  the  higher 
powers — grasp  of  meaning,  perception  of  analogy,  observation,  reflection, 
imagination,  intellectual  memory ;  in  the  other  class  is  one  power  only, 
and  that  is  a  kind  of  memory  that  depends  on  the  association  of  sounds. 
How  is  it  then  that  in  most  school-rooms  far  more  time  is  spent  in 
cultivating  this  last  and  least-valuable  power  than  all  the  rest  put 
together?  The  explanation  is  easy.  All  the  higher  powers  can  be 
exercised  only  when  the  pupils  are  interested,  or,  as  Mr.  Thring  puts  it, 
'care  for  what  they  are  about.'  The  memory  that  depends  on  as- 
sociating sounds  is  independent  of  interest  and  can  be  secured  by  simple 
repetition.  Now  it  is  very  hard  to  awaken  interest,  and  still  harder  to 
maintain  it.  That  magician's  wand,  the  cane,  with  which  the  school- 
niasttrs  of  olden  time  worked  such  wonders,  is  powerless  here  or 
powej  fui  only  in  the  negative  direction ;  and  so  is  every  form  of  punish- 
ment. You  may  tell  a  boy — '  If  you  can't  say  your  lesson  you  shall 
stay  in  and  write  it  out  half-a-dozen  times  ! '  and  the  threat  may  have 
effect ;  but  no  '  instans  tyranmis '  from  Orbilius  downwards  has  evet 
thought  of  saying,  '  If  you  don't  take  an  interest  in  your  work,  I'll  keep 
you  in  till  you  do  !'  So  teachers  very  naturally  prefer  the  kind  of 
teaching  in  which  they  can  make  sure  of  success." 


194  THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 

Against  making  beginnings  bitter. 

him  to  finish  a  task  imposed  upon  him,  and  with  this  object 
we  can  deprive  him  of  play  and  recreation.  But  is  this 
work  of  the  galley-slave  studying?  And  what  remains  tc 
the  pupil  from  this  kind  of  study  but  a  hatred  of  books,  of 
learning,  and  of  masters,  often  till  the  end  of  his  days  ?  It 
is  then  the  will  that  we  must  draw  on  our  side,  and  this  we 
must  do  by  gentleness,  by  friendliness,  by  persuasion,  and 
above  all  by  the  allurement  of  pleasure."  {Traiie,  8th  Bk. 
Du  Gouvernement  des  Classes,  i"  Par  tie,  Art.  x.) 

§  41.  The  passage  I  have  quoted  is  from  the  Article 
"  on  giving  a  taste  for  study  {rendre  FHude  aimable) ;"  and 
if  some  masters  do  not  agree  that  this  is  "  one  of  the  most 
important  points  concerning  education,"  they  will  not  deny 
that  "  it  is  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  most  difficult."  As 
RoUin  truly  says,  "  among  a  very  great  number  of  masters 
who  in  other  respects  are  highly  meritorious  there  will  be 
found  very  few  who  manage  to  get  their  pupils  to  like  their 
work." 

§  42.  One  of  the  great  causes  of  the  disinclination  for 
school  work  is  to  be  found  according  to  Rollin  and  Quintilian, 
in  the  repulsive  form  in  which  children  first  become 
acquainted  with  the  elements  of  learning.  "  In  this  matter 
success  depends  very  much  on  first  impressions ;  and  the 
main  effort  of  the  masters  who  teach  the  first  rudiments 
should  be  so  to  do  this,  that  the  child  who  cannot  as  yet 
love  study  should  at  least  not  get  an  aversion  for  it  from 
that  time  forward,  for  fear  lest  the  bitter  taste  once  acquired 
should  still  be  in  his  mouth  when  he  grows  older."*  (Begin. 
of  Art.  X,  as  above.) 

•  Here  as  usual  Rollin  uses  Quintilian  without  directly  quoting  him. 
He  gives  in  a  note  the  passage  he  had  in  his  mind.     "Id  imprimis 


THE   PORT-ROYALISTS.  1 95 

Port-Royal  advance.     Books  on  P.-R. 

§  43.  In  this  matter  Rollin  was  more  truly  the  disciple  of 
the  Port-Royalists  than  of  Quintilian.  They  it  was  who 
protested  against  the  dismal  "  grind "  of  learning  to  read 
first  in  an  unknown  tongue,  and  of  studying  the  rules  of 
Latin  in  Latin  with  no  knowledge  of  Latin,  a  course  which 
professed  to  lead,  as  Sainte-Bcuve  puts  it,  "to  the  unknown 
through  the  unintelligible."  They  directed  their  highly- 
trained  intellects  to  the  teaching  of  the  elements,  and 
succeeded  in  proving  that  the  ordinary  difficulties  were  due 
not  to  the  dulness  of  the  learners,  but  to  the  stupidity  of  the 
masters.  They  showed  how  much  might  be  done  to  remove 
these  difficulties  by  following  not  routine  but  the  dictates  of 
thought,  and  study  and  love  of  the  little  ones. 


There  is  an  excellent  though  condensed  account  of  the  Port- Royalists 
under  ' '  Jansenists  "  in  Sonnenschein's  Cydopczdia  of  Education.  In 
'vol.  ij,  of  Charles  Beard's  Port-Royal,  (2  vols.,  1861)  there  is  a  chapter 
on  the  Little  Schools.  The  most  pleasing  account  I  have  seen  in 
English  of  the  Port- Royalists  (without  reference  to  education)  is  in  Sir 
Jas.  Stephen's  Essays  on  Ecclesiastical  Biography.  In  French  the  great 
work  on  the  subject  is  Sainte-Beuve's  Port-Royal,  5  vols.  (71  ed.,  6  vols.) 
The  account  of  the  Schools  is  in  4th  bk.,  in  vol.  iij,  of  1st  ed.  Very 
useful  for  studying  the  pedagogy  of  Port-Royal  are  L' Education  ci  Port- 
Royal  by  Felix  Cadet  (Hachette,  1887)  and  Les  Pedagogues  de  Port- 
Royal,  by  I.  Carre  (Delagrave,  1887).  These  last  give  extracts  from 
the  main  writings  on  education  by  Amauld,  Nicole,  Lancelot,  Coustel, 
&c.  The  article.  Port- Royal,  in  Buisson's  D.,  is  the  "  Introduction  "  to 
Carre's  book.  A  3-vol.  ed.  of  Rollin's  Traiti  was  published  (Paris, 
Didot)  in  1872.     The  more  interesting  parts  of  this  book  are  contained 


cavere  oportebit,  ne  studia  qui  amare  nondum  potest  oderit ;  et  amari- 
tudinem  semel  prseceptam  etiam  ultra  rudes  annos  reformidet  (Quint., 
lib.  j,  cap.  I.)" 


196  THE  PORT-ROYALISTS. 

Rollin,  &c. 

in  F.  Cadet's  Rollin:  Traiti  des  ttuies  (Delagrave,  1882).  RoHin's 
work  was  at  one  time  well-known  in  the  English  trans.,  and  copies  of  it 
are  often  to  be  found  "second-hand."  The  best  part  comes  last ;  which 
may  account  for  the  neglect  into  which  the  book  haj  fallen.  The 
accounts  of  Port-Royal  and  of  Rollin  in  G.  Compayre's  Histoiri 
Critique  are  very  good  parts  of  a  very  good  book.  V^rin's  itude  suf 
Lancelot  I  have  not  seen,  and  it  is  only  too  probable  that  I  have  not 
given  to  Lancelot  the  attention  due  to  him. 


XII. 

SOME  ENGLISH  WRITERS  BEFORE 
LOCKE. 


§  I.  The  beginning  of  the  17th  century  brought  with  it 
a  change  in  the  main  direction  of  thought  and  interest.  As 
we  have  seen,  the  i6th  century  adored  Uterature  and  was 
thrown  back  on  the  remote  past.  Some  of  the  great  scholars 
Hke  Sturm  had  indeed  visions  of  Hterary  works  to  be  written, 
that  would  rival  the  old  models  on  which  they  were 
fashioned  ;  but  whether  they  hoped  or  not  to  bring  back 
the  Golden  Age  all  the  scholars  of  the  Renascence  thought 
of  it  as  having  been.  With  the  change  of  century,  however,  a 
new  conception  came  into  men's  minds.  Might  not  this 
worship  of  the  old  writers  after  all  be  somewhat  of  a 
superstition?  The  languages  in  which  they  wrote  were 
beautiful  languages,  no  doubt,  but  they  were  ill  adapted  to 
express  the  ideas  and  wants  of  the  modern  world.  As  for 
the  substance  of  these  old  writings,  this  did  not  satisfy  the 
cravings  of  men's  minds.  It  left  unsolved  all  the  main 
problems  of  existence,  and  offered  for  knowledge  mere 
speculations  or  poetic  fancies  or  polished  rhetoric.  Man 
needed  to  understand  his  position  with  regard  to  God  and 
to  Nature ;  but  on  both  of  these  topics  the  classics  were 
either  silent  or  misleading.     Revelation  had  supplied  what 


198  WRITERS   BEFORE  LOCKE. 

Birth  of  Realism. 

the  classics  could  not  give  concerning  rrjan's  relation  to  God ; 
but  nothing  had  as  yet  thrown  light  on  his  relation  to  Nature. 
And  yet  with  his  material  body  and  animal  life  he  could 
not  but  see  how  close  that  relation  was,  and  could  not  but 
wish  that  something  about  it  might  be  known,  not  simply 
guessed  or  feigned.  Hence  the  demand  for  rifa/ knowledge, 
that  is,  a  knowledge  of  the  facts  of  the  universe  as  distinct 
from  the  knowledge  of  what  men  have  thought  and  said. 
We  have  heard  of  the  mathematician  who  put  down  Paradise 
Lost  with  the  remark  that  it  seemed  to  him  a  poor  book,  for 
it  did  not  prove  anything ;  and  it  was  just  in  this  spirit  that 
the  new  school  of  thinkers,  the  Realists,  looked  upon  the 
classics.  They  wanted  to  know  Nature's  laws  :  and  words 
which  did  not  convey  such  knowledge  seemed  to  them  of 
little  value. 

§  2.  Here  was  a  tremendous  revolution  from  the  mode 
of  thought  prevalent  in  the  Renascence.  No  longer  was 
the  Golden  Age  in  the  past.  In  science  the  Golden  Age 
must  always  be  in  the  future.  Scientific  men  start  with  what 
has  been  discovered  and  add  to  it.  Every  discovery  passes 
into  the  common  stock  of  knowledge,  and  becomes  the 
property  of  everyone  who  knows  it  just  as  much  as  of  the 
discoverer.  Harvey  had  no  more  property  in  the  circulation 
of  the  blood,  Newton  and  Leibnitz  no  more  property  in  the 
Differential  Calculus  than  Columbus  in  the  Continent  of 
America ;  indeed  not  so  much,  for  Columbus  gained  some 
exclusive  rights  in  America,  but  Harvey  gained  none  over 
the  blood. 

So  we  see  that  whereas  the  literary  spirit  made  t?ie 
dominant  minds  reverence  the  past,  the  scientific  spirit  led 
them  to  despise  the  past;  and  whereas  the  literary  spirit 
raised  the  value  of  words  and  led  to  the  study  of  celebrated 


WRITERS   BEFORE   LOCKE.  I99 

Realist  Leaders  not  schoolmasters. 

writings,  the  scientific  spirit  was  totally  careless  about  words 
and  prized  only  physical  truths  which  were  entirely  in- 
dependent of  words.  Again,  the  literary  spirit  naturally 
favoured  the  principle  of  authority,  for  its  oracles  had  already 
spoken :  the  scientific  spirit  set  aside  all  authority  and 
accepted  nothing  that  did  not  of  itself  satisfy  the  reason. 
(Compare  Comenius,  supra  p.  152.) 

§  3.  The  first  great  leader  in  this  revolution  was  an 
Englishman,  Francis  Bacon.  But  the  school-room  felt  his 
influence  only  through  those  who  learnt  from  him;  and  among 
educational  reformers,  the  chief  advocates  of  realism  have 
been  found  on  the  Continent,  e.g.,  Ratke  and  Comenius.* 
But  the  desire  to  learn  by  *'  things,  not  words  "  affected  the 
minds  of  many  English  writers  on  education,  and  we  find 
this  spirit  showing  itself  even  in  Milton  and  Locke,  and  far 
more  clearly  in  some  writers  less  known  to  fame. 

§  4.  There  is  a  wide  distinction  in  educational  writers 
between  those  who  were  schoolmasters  and  those  who  were 
not.  Schoolmasters  have  to  come  to  terms  with  what  exists 
and  to  make  a  livelihood  by  it.  So  they  are  conservatives 
by  position,  and  rarely  get  beyond  an  attempt  at  showing 
how  that  which  is  now  done  badly  might  be  done  well. 
Suggestions  of  radical  change  usually  come  from  those  who 
never  belonged  to  the  class  of  teachers,  or  who,  not  without 
disgust,  have  left  it. 

Among  Erxglish  schoolmasters  of  the  olden  times  the  chief 
writers  I  have  met  with  besides  Mulcaster  are  John  Brinsley 
^^Ke  elder,  and  Charles  Hoole. 

*  Rousseau,  Pestalozzi  and  Froebel  weie  also  in  this  sense  realists, 
but  they  held  that  the  educational  value  of  knowledge  lay  not  in  itself, 
but  only  in  so  far  as  it  was  an  instrument  for  developing  the  faculties  oJ 
the  mind. 


200  WRITERS  BEFORE  LOCKE. 

John  Brinsley.    Charles  Hoole. 

§  5.  John  Brinsley  the  elder,  a  Puritan  schoolmaster  at 
Ashby-de-la-Zouch,  a  brother-in-law  of  Bishop  Hall's,  and 
father  of  John  Brinsley  the  younger  who  became  a  leading 
Puritan  minister  and  author,  was  a  veritable  reformer,  bui. 
only  with  reference  to  methods.  His  most  interesting 
hooks  ZXQ  Ludus  Literarius  or  the  Grammar  Schoole,  161 2 
(written  after  20  years'  experience  in  teaching,  as  we  learn 
from  the  Consolation,  p.  45),  and  A  Consolation  for  our 
Grammar  Schooles :  or  a  faithfull  and  most  comfortable  in- 
couragement  for  laying  of  a  sure  foundation  of  all  good  learn- 
ing in  our  schooles  and  for  prosperous  building  thereupon, 
1622.  The  first  of  these,  when  reprinted,  as  it  is  sure  to 
be,  will  always  secure  for  its  author  the  notice  and  the 
gratitude  of  students  of  the  history  of  our  education  ;  for  in 
this  book  he  tells  us  not  only  what  should  be  done  in  the 
school-room,  but  also  what  was  done.  In  a  dialogue  with 
the  ordinary  schoolmaster  the  reformer  draws  to  light  the 
usual  practice,  criticizes  it,  and  suggests  improvements. 

§  6.  In  Brinsley  we  get  no  hint  of  realism  ;  but  by 
the  middle  of  the  sixteen  hundreds  we  find  the  realistic 
spirit  is  felt  even  by  a  schoolmaster,  Charles  Hoole,*  who 
was  a  kinsman  of  Bishop  Sanderson,  the  Casuist,  and  was 
master  first  of  the  Grammar  School  at  Rotherham,  then  of  a 
private  Grammar  School  in  London,  published  besides  a 
number  of  school  books,  a  translation  of  the  Orbis  I'ictus{daXe 
of  preface,  Januar}',  1658),  and  also  "A  New  Discovery  of  the 
old  art  of  teaching  schoole    .    .    .    published  for  the  general 


•  Henry  Barnard  {English  Pedagogy,  second  series,  p.  192),  speaks  of 
Hoole  as  "  one  of  the  pioneer  educators  of  his  century. "  According  to 
Barnard  he  was  bom  at  Wakefield,  in  1610,  and  died  in  1666,  rector  of 
"  Stock  Billerica  "  (perhaps  Stock  with  Billericay),  in  Essex. 


WRITERS  BEFORE  LOCKE.         20I 

Hoole's  Realism. 

profit,  especially  of  young  Schoolemasters  "  (date  of  preface, 
December,  1659).  In  these  books  we  find  that  Hoole 
succeeded  even  in  the  schoolroom  in  keeping  his  mind  open. 
He  complains  of  the  neglect  of  English,  and  evidently  in 
theory  at  least  went  a  long  way  with  the  realistic  reformers. 
"Comenius/'hesays,  "hath  proceeded  (as  Nature  itself  doth) 
in  an  orderly  way,  first  to  exercise  the  senses  well  by  pre- 
senting their  objects  to  them,  and  then  to  fasten  upon  the 
intellect  by  impressing  the  first  notions  of  things  upon  it  and 
linking  them  one  to  another  by  a  rational  discourse; 
whereas  indeed  we  generally,  missing  this  way,  do  teach 
children  as  we  do  parrots  to  speak  they  know  not  what,  nay, 
which  is  worse,  we  taking  the  way  of  teaching  little  ones  by 
grammar  only,  at  the  first  do  puzzle  their  imaginations  with 
abstractive  terms  and  secondary  intentions,  which,  till  they 
be  somewhat  acquainted  with  things,  and  the  words  belong- 
ing to  them  in  the  language  which  they  learn,  they  cannot 
apprehend  what  they  mean.  And  this  I  guess  to  be  the 
reason  why  many  greater  persons  do  resolve  sometimes  not 
to  put  a  child  to  school  till  he  be  at  least  eleven  or  twelve 
years  of  age  .  .  .  You  then,  that  have  the  care  of 
little  children,  do  not  too  much  trouble  their  thoughts  and 
clog  their  memories  with  bare  grammar  rudiments,  which  to 
them  are  harsh  in  getting,  and  fluid  in  retaining ;  because 
indeed  to  them  they  signifie  nothing  but  a  meer  swimming 
notion  of  a  general  term,  which  they  know  not  what  it 
meaneth  till  they  comprehend  all  particulars :  but  by  tliis 
[i.e.,  the  Orel's  I*.]  or  the  like  subsidiarie  inform  them  first 
with  some  knowledge  of  things  and  words  wherewith  to 
express  them  ;  and  then  their  rules  of  speaking  will  be 
better  understood  and  more  firmly  kept  in  mind.  Else  how 
should  a  child  conceive  what  a  rule  meaneth  when  he  neither 


202  WRITERS  BEFORE  LOCKE. 

Art  of  teaching.    Abraham  Cowley. 

knoweth  what  the  Latine  word  importeth,  nor  what  manner 
of  thing  it  is  which  is  signified  to  him  in  his  own  native 
language  which  is  given  him  thereby  to  understand  the  rule? 
for  rules  consisting  of  generalities  are  delivered  (as  I  may 
say)  at  a  third  hand,  presuming  first  the  things  and  then  the 
words  to  be  already  apprehended  touching  which  they  are 
made."  This  subject  Hoole  wisely  commends  to  the  con- 
sideration of  teachers,  "it  being  thevery  basis  of  our  profession 
to  search  into  the  way  of  children!!  taking  hold  by  little  and 
little  of  what  we  teach  them,  that  so  we  may  apply  ourselves 
to  their  reach."     (Preface  to  trans,  of  Orbis  Pictus.) 

§  7.  "Good  Lord!  how  many  good  and  clear  wits  of 
children  be  now-a-days  perished  by  ignorant  schoolmasters  !" 
So  said  Sir  Thomas  Elyot  in  his  Governor  in  1531,  and  the 
complaint  would  not  have  been  out  of  date  in  the  17th 
century,  possibly  not  in  the  19th.  In  the  sixteen  hundreds 
we  certainly  find  little  advance  in  practice,  though  in  theory 
many  bold  projects  were  advanced,  some  of  which  pointed 
to  the  study  of  things,  to  the  training  of  the  hand,  and  even 
to  observation  of  the  "  educands." 

§  8.  The  poet  Cowley's  "proposition  for  the  advance- 
ment of  experimental  philosophy  "  is  a  scheme  of  a  college 
near  London  to  which  is  to  be  attached  a  school  of  200 
boys.  "  And  because  it  is  deplorable  to  consider  the  lo.ss 
which  children  make  of  their  time  at  most  schools,  employ- 
ing or  rather  casting  away  six  or  seven  years  in  the  learning 
of  words  only,  and  that  too  very  imperfectly  ;  that  a  method 
be  here  established  for  the  infusing  knowledge  and  language 
at  the  same  time,  [Is  this  an  echo  of  Comenius  ?]  and  that 
this  may  be  their  apprenticeship  in  Natural  Philosophy."* 

*  A  very  interesting  suggestion  of  Cowley's  is  that  another  house 
be  built  for  poor  men's  sons  who  show  ability.     These  shall  be  brought 


WRITERS  BEFORE  LOCKE.  ?03 

Authors  and  schoolmasters.    J.  Dury. 

§  9.  Rarely  indeed  have  those  who  either  theoretically  or 
practically  have  made  a  study  of  education  ever  acquired 
sufficient  literary  skill  to  catch  the  ear  of  the  public  or  (what 
is  at  least  as  difficult)  the  ear  of  the  teaching  body.  And 
among  the  eminent  writers  who  have  spoken  on  education, 
as  Rabelais,  Montaigne,  Milton,  Locke,  Rousseau,  Herbert 
Spencer,  we  cannot  find  one  who  has  given  to  it  more  than 
passing,  if  not  accidental,  attention.  Schoolmasters  are,  as  I 
said,  conservative,  at  least  in  the  school-room  ;  and  moreover, 
they  seldom  find  the  necessary  time,  money,  or  inclination 
for  publishing  on  the  work  of  their  calling.  The  current 
thought  at  any  period  must  then  be  gathered  from  books 
only  to  be  found  in  our  great  libraries,  books  in  which 
writers  now  long  forgotten  give  hints  of  what  was  wanted 
out  of  the  school-room  and  grumble  at  what  went  on  in  it. 

§  10.  One  of  the  most  original  of  these  writers  that  have 
come  in  my  way  is  John  Dury,  a  Puritan,  who  was  at  one 
time  Chaplain  to  the  English  Company  of  Merchants  at 
Elbing,  and  laboured  with  Comenius  and  Hartlib  to  promote 
unity  among  the  various  Christian  bodies  of  the  reformed 
faith  (see  Masson's  Life  of  Milton,  vol.  iii).  About  1 649 
Dury  published  The  Reformed  Schoole  which  gives  the  scheme 
of  an  association  for  the  purpose  of  educating  a  number  of 
boys  and  girls  "  in  a  Christian  way." 

§  II.  That  Dury  was  not  himself  a  schoolmaster  is  plain 
from  the  first  of  his  "rules  of  education."  "The  chief  rule  of 
the  whole  work  is  that  nothing  be  made  tedious  and  grievous 
to  the  children,  but  all  the  toilsomeness  of  their  business 

up  "  with  the  same  conveniences  that  are  enjoyed  even  by  rich  men' 
children  (though  they  maintain  the  fewer  for  that  cause),  there  being 
nothing  of  eminent  and  illustrious  to  be  expected  from  a  low",  sordid, 
and  hospital-like  education." 


204  WRITERS  BEFORE   LOCKE. 


Disorderly  use  of  our  natural  faculties. 

the  Governor  and  Ushers  are  to  take  upon  the  uselves;  that 
by  diligence  and  industry  all  things  may  be  so  prepared, 
methodized  and  ordered  for  their  apprehension,  that  this 
work  may  unto  them  be  as  a  delightful  recreation  by  the 
variety  and  easiness  thereof." 

§  12.  "The  things  to  be  looked  unto  in  the  care  of 
their  education,"  he  enumerates  in  the  order  of  importance  : 
"i.  Their  advancement  in  piety;  2.  The  preservation  of  their 
health ;  3.  The  forming  of  their  manners  ;  4.  Their  pro- 
ficiency in  learning"  (p.  24).  "Godliness  and  bodily 
health  are  absolutely  necessary,"  says  Dury  ;  "  the  one  for 
spiritual  and  the  other  for  their  temporal  felicitie  "  (p.  3 1) :  so 
great  care  is  to  be  taken  in  "  exercising  their  bodies  in 
husbandry  or  manufactures  or  military  employments."* 

§  13.  About  instruction  we  find  the  usual  complaints 
which  like  "  mother's  truth  keep  constant  youth."  "  Child- 
ren," says  Dury,  "are  taught  to  read  authors  and  learn  words 
and  sentences  before  they  can  have  any  notion  of  the  things 
signified  by  those  words  and  sentences  or  of  the  author's 
strain  and  wit  in  setting  them  together  ;  and  they  are  made 
to  learn  by  heart  the  generall  rules,  sentences  and  precepts 
of  Arts  before  they  are  furnished  with  any  matter  whereunto 
to  apply  those  rules  and  precepts  "  (p.  38).  Dury  would 
entirely  sweep  away  the  old  routine,  and  in  all  instruction 
he  would  keep  in  view  the  following  end  :  "  the  true  end  of 
all  human  learning  is  to  supply  in  ourselves  and  others  the 
defects  which  proceed  from  our  ignorance  of  the  nature  and 

*  It  would  seem  as  if  these  Puritans  were  more  active  in  body  than 
in  mind  :  even  the  seniors,  like  the  children  at  Port-Royal,  tombent  dans 
la  nonchalance.  Dury  has  to  lay  it  down  that  "  the  Governour  and 
Ushers  and  Steward  if  they  be  in  health  should  not  go  to  bed  till  ten.'' 
(P-  30.) 


WRITERS   BEFORE  LOCKE.  205 

Dury's  watch  simile. 

use  of  the  creatures,  and  the  disorderliness  of  our  natural 
faculties  in  using  them  and  reflecting  upon  them  "  (p.  41). 

§  14.  "  Our  natural  faculties" — here  Dury  struck  a  new 
note,  which  has  now  become  the  keynote  in  the  science  of 
education.  He  enforces  his  point  with  the  following 
ingenious  illustration : — "  As  in  a  watch  one  wheel  rightly 
set  doth  with  its  teeth  take  hold  of  another  and  sets  that 
a-work  towards  a  third ;  and  so  all  move  one  by  another 
when  they  are  in  their  right  places  for  the  end  for  which  the 
watch  is  made ;  so  is  it  with  the  faculties  of  the  human 
nature  being  rightly  ordered  to  the  ends  for  which  God 
hath  created  them.  But  contrariwise,  if  the  wheels  be  not 
rightly  set,  or  the  watch  not  duly  wound  up,  it  is  useless  to 
him  that  hath  it.  And  so  it  is  with  the  faculties  of  Man ; 
if  his  wheels  be  not  rightly  ordered  and  wound  up  by  the 
ends  of  sciences  in  their  subordination  leading  him  to 
employ  the  same  according  to  his  capacity  to  make  use  of 
the  creatures  for  that  whereunto  God  hath  made  them,  he 
becomes  not  only  useless,  but  even  a  burthen  and  hurtful 
unto  himself  and  others  by  the  misusing  of  them  "  (p.  43). 

§  15.  "As  in  Nature  sense  is  the  servant  of  imagination ; 
imagination  of  memory ;  m.emory  of  reason ;  so  in  teaching 
arts  and  sciences  we  must  set  these  faculties  a-work  in  this 
order  towards  their  proper  objects  in  everything  which  is  to 
be  taught.  Whence  this  will  follow,  that  as  the  faculties  of 
Man's  soul  naturally  perfect  each  other  by  their  mutual 
subordination ;  so  the  Arts  which  perfect  those  faculties 
should  be  gradually  suggested :  and  the  objects  wherewith 
the  faculties  are  to  be  conversant  according  to  the  rules  of 
Art  should  be  offered  in  that  order  which  is  answerable  to 
their  proper  ends  and  uses  and  not  otherwise." 

§  16.  In  this  and  much  else  that  Dury  says  we  see  a  firm 
16 


206  WRITERS  BEFORE  LOCKE. 

Senses,  ist ;  imagination,  2nd ;  memory,  3rd. 

grasp  of  the  principle  that  the  instruction  given  should  be 
regulated  by  the  gradual  development  of  the  learner's 
faculties.  The  three  sources  of  our  knowledge,  says  he,  are 
— I.  Sense;  2.  Tradition;  3.  Reason;  and  Sense  comes 
first.  "  Art  or  sciences  which  may  be  learnt  by  mere  sense 
should  not  be  learnt  any  other  way."  "As  children's 
faculties  break  forth  in  them  by  degrees  to  be  vigorous  with 
their  years  and  the  growth  of  their  bodies,  so  they  are  to  be 
filled  with  objects  whereof  they  are  capable,  and  plied  with 
arts ;  whence  foUoweth  that  while  children  are  not  capable  of 
the  acts  of  reasoning,  the  method  of  filling  their  senses  and 
imaginations  with  outward  objects  should  be  plied.  Nor  is_ 
their  memory  at  this  time  to  be  charged  further  with  any 
objects  than  their  imagination  rightly  ordered  and  fixed  doth 
of  itself  impress  the  same  upon  them."  After  speaking  of 
the  common  abuse  of  general  rules,  he  says :  "  So  far  as 
those  faculties  (viz.,  sense,  imagination,  and  memory)  are 
started  with  matters  of  observation,  so  far  rules  may  be 
given  to  direct  the  mind  in  the  use  of  the  same,  and  no 
further."  "  The  arts  and  sciences  which  lead  us  to  reflect 
upon  the  use  of  our  own  faculties  are  not  to  be  taught  till 
we  are  fully  acquainted  with  their  proper  objects,  and  the 
direct  acts  of  the  faculties  about  them."  So  "  it  is  a  very 
absurd  and  preposterous  course  to  teach  Logick  and 
Metaphysicks  before  or  with  other  Humane  Sciences  which 
depend  more  upon  Sense  and  Imagination  than  reasoning  " 
(p.  46). 

§  17.  In  all  this  it  seems  to  me  that  the  worthy  Puritan, 
of  whom  nobody  but  Dr.  Barnard  and  Professor  Masson 
has  ever  heard,  has  truly  done  more  to  lay  a  foundation  for 
the  art  of  teaching  than  his  famous  contemporaries  Milton 
and  Locke. 

'J        f 
aJj"   ^Cuw.  'VvikI"  /vwtt,     j-y 


WRITERS   BEFORE  LOCKK  20/ 

Petty's  battlefield  simile. 

§  1 8.  Another  writer  of  that  day  better  known  than 
Dury  and  with  far  more  power  of  expression  was  Sir 
WiUi^m  Petty.  He  is  the  "  W.P.,"  who  in  an  Epistle  "to 
his  honoured  friend  Master  Samuel  Hartlib,"  set  down  his 
"thoughts  concerning  the  advancement  of  real  learning" 
(1647).  This  letter  is  to  be  shown  only  "  to  those  few  that 
are  Reall  Friends  to  the  Designe  of  Realities."* 

§  19.  Petty  sees  the  need  of  intercommunication  of 
those  who  wish  to  advance  any  art  or  science.  He 
complains  that  "  the  wits  and  endeavours  of  the  world  are 
as  so  many  scattered  coals  or  fire-brands,  which  for  want  of 
union  are  soon  quenched,  whereas  being  but  laid  together 
they  would  yield  a  comfortable  light  and  heat."  This  is  a 
thought  which  may  well  be  applied  to  the  bringing  up  of 
the  young;  and  the  following  passage  might  have  been 
written  to  secure  a  training  for  teachers  :  "  Methinks  the 
present  condition  of  men  is  like  a  field  where  a  battle  hath 
been  lately  fought,  where  we  may  see  many  legs  and  arms 
and  eyes  lying  here  and  there,  which  for  want  of  a  union 
and  a  soul  to  quicken  and  enliven  them  are  good  for 
nothing  but  to  feed  ravens  and  infect  the  air.  So  we  see 
many  wits  and  ingenuities  lying  scattered  up  and  down  the 


*  It  is  a  sign  of  the  failure  of  all  attempts  to  establish  educational 
Ecience  in  England  that  though  the  meaning  of  "real  "  and  "realities" 
«  hich  connected  them  with  res  seemed  established  in  the  sixteen  hundreds, 
our  language  soon  lost  it  again.  According  to  a  writer  in  Meyer's 
Conversations  lexicon  (first  edition)  ''reales"  in  this  sense  occurs  first 
in  Taubmann,  1614.  Whether  this  is  correct  or  not  it  was  certainly 
about  this  time  that  there  arose  a  contest  between  Humanismus  and 
Realismus,  a  contest  now  at  its  height  in  the  Gymnasien  and  Realschulen 
of  Germany.  For  a  discussion  of  it,  set  M.  Arnold's  "  Literature  and 
Science,"  referred  to  above  (p.  154). 


208  WRITERS   BEFORE   LOCKE. 

Petty's  realism. 

world,  whereof  some  are  now  labouring  to  do  what  is 
already  done,  and  puzzling  themselves  to  re-invent  what  is 
already  invented.  Others  we  see  quite  stuck  fast  in  diffi- 
culties for  want  of  a  few  directions  which  some  other  man 
(might  he  be  met  withal)  both  could  and  would  most  easily 
give  him."  I  wonder  how  many  young  teachers  are  now 
wasting  their  own  and  their  pupils'  time  in  this  awkward 
predicament. 

§  20.  "As  for  .  .  .  education,"  says  Petty,  "we 
cannot  but  hope  that  those  who  make  it  their  trade  will 
supply  it  and  render  the  idea  thereof  much  more  perfect." 
His  own  contributions  to  the  more  perfect  idea  consist 
mainly  in  making  the  study  of  "  realities  "  precede  literature, 
and  thus  announcing  the  principle  which  in  later  times  has 
led  to  the  introduction  of  "  object  lessons."  The  Baconians 
thought  that  the  good  time  was  at  hand,  and  that  they  had 
found  the  right  road  at  last.  By  experiments  they  would 
learn  to  interpret  Nature.  After  scheming  a  "  Gymnasium, 
Mechanicum,  or  College  of  Tradesmen,"  Petty  says,  "  What 
experiments  and  stuff  would  all  those  shops  and  operations 
afford  to  active  and  philosophical  heads,  out  of  which  to 
extract  that  interpretation  of  nature  whereof  there  is  so 
little,  and  that  so  bad,  as  yet  extant  in  the  world  !"*  And 
this  study  of  things  was  to  affect  the  work  of  the  school-room, 
and  redeem  it  from  the  dismal  state  into  which  it  was 
fallen.  "As  for  the  studies  to  which  children  are  now- 
a-days  put,"  says  Petty,  "  they  are  altogether  unfit  for  want 
of  judgment  which  is  but  weak  in  them,  and  also  for  want 
of  will,  which  is  sufficiently  seen     ...     by  the  difficulty 


•  Many  of  Petty's  proposals  are  now  realized  in  the  South  Kensington 
Museum. 


WRITERS  BEFORE  LOCKE.  2O9 

Cultivate  observation. 

of  keeping  them  at  schools  and  the  punishment  they  will 
endure  rather  than  be  altogether  debarred  from  the 
pleasure  which  they  take  in  things." 

§  21.  The  grand  reform  required  is  thus  set  forth; 
"Since  few  children  have  need  of  reading  before  they  know 
or  can  be  acquainted  with  the  things  they  read  of;  or  of 
writing  before  their  thoughts  are  worth  the  recording  or  they 
are  able  to  put  them  into  any  form  (which  we  call 
inditing) ;  much  less  of  learning  languages  when  there  be 
books  enough  for  their  present  use  in  their  own  mother- 
tongue  ;  our  opinion  is  that  those  things  being  withal 
somewhat  above  their  capacity  (as  being  to  be  attained  by 
judgment  which  is  weakest  in  children)  be  deferred  awhile, 
and  others  more  needful  for  them,  such  as  are  in  the  order  of 
Nature  before  those  afore-mentioned,  and  are  attainable  by 
the  help  of  memory  which  is  either  most  strong  or  unpreoc- 
cupied  in  children,  be  studied  before  them.  We  wish, 
therefore,  that  the  educands  be  taught  to  observe  and 
remember  all  sensible  objects  and  actions,  whether  they  be 
natural  or  artificial,  which  the  educators  must  upon  all 
occasions  expound  unto  them." 

§  22.  In  proposing  this  great  change  Petty  was  in- 
fluenced not  merely  by  his  own  delight  in  the  study  of 
things  but  by  something  far  more  important  for  education, 
by  observation  of  the  children  themselves.  This  study 
of  things  instead  of  "  a  rabble  of  words  "  would  be  "  more 
easy  and  pleasant  to  the  young  as  the  more  suitable  "to  the 
natural  propensions  we  observe  in  them.  For  we  see 
children  do  delight  in  drums,  pipes,  fiddles,  guns  made  of 
elder  sticks,  and  bellows'  noses,  piped  keys,  &c.,  painting 
flags  and  ensigns  with  elderberries  and  cornpoppy,  making 
ships  with  paper,  and  setting  even  nut-shells  a-swimming, 


2IO  WRITERS  BEFORE   LOCKE. 

Petty  on  children's  activities. 

handling  the  tools  of  workmen  as  soon  as  they  turn  their 
backs  and  trying  to  work  themselves;  fishing,  fowling, hunting, 
setting  springes  and  traps  for  birds  and  other  animals,  making 
pictures  in  their  wiiting-books,  making  tops,  gigs  and 
whirligigs,  gilting  balls,  practising  divers  juggling  tricks  upon 
the  cards,  &c.,  with  a  million  more  besides.  And  for  the 
females  they  will  be  making  pies  with  clay,  making  their 
babies'  clothes  and  dressing  them  therewith ;  they  will  spit 
leaves  on  sticks  as  if  they  were  roasting  meat;  they  will 
imitate  all  the  talk  and  actions  which  they  observe  in  their 
mother  and  her  gossips,  and  punctually  act  the  comedy  or 
the  tragedy  (I  know  not  whether  to  call  it)  of  a  woman's 
lying-in.  By  all  which  it  is  most  evident  that  children  do 
most  naturally  delight  in  things  and  are  most  capable  of 
learning  them,  having  quick  senses  to  receive  them  and 
unpreoccupied  memories  to  retain  them  "  {adf.). 

§  23.  In  these  writers,  Dury  and  Petty,  we  find  a 
wonderful  advance  in  the  theory  of  instruction.  Children 
are  to  be  taught  about  things  and  this  because  their  inward 
constitution  determines  them  towards  things.  Moreover 
the  subjects  of  instruction  are  to  be  graduated  to  accord 
with  the  development  of  the  learner's  faculties.  The  giving 
of  rules  and  incomprehensible  statements  that  will  come  in 
useful  at  a  future  stage  is  entirely  forbidden.  All  this  is 
excellent,  and  greatly  have  children  suffered,  greatly  do  they 
suffer  still,  from  their  teachers'  neglect  of  it.  There  seems 
to  me  to  have  been  no  important  advance  on  the  thought  of 
these  men  till  Pestalozzi  and  Froebel  fixed  their  attention  on 
the  mind  of  the  child,  and  valued  things  not  in  themselves  but 
simply  as  the  means  best  fitted  for  drawing  out  the  child's 
self-activity. 

§  24.  In    several    other    matters    we   find   Sir   William 


WRITERS   BEFORE   LOCKE.  211 

Hand- work.    Education  for  all.     Bellers. 

Petty's  recommendations  in  advance  of  the  practice  of  his 
own  time  and  ours.  He  advises  "  that  the  business  of 
©lucation  be  not  (as  now)  committed  to  the  worst  and 
uiiworthiest  of  men  [here  at  least  we  have  improved]  but 
that  it  be  seriously  studied  and  practised  by  the  best  and 
abler  persons."     To  this  standard  we  have  not  yet  attained. 

§  25.  Handwork  is  to  be  practised,  but  its  educational 
value  is  not  clearly  perceived.  "  All  children,  though  of  the 
highest  rank,  are  to  be  taught  some  gentle  manufacture  in 
their  minority."  Ergastula  Literaria,  literary  workhouses, 
are  to  be  instituted  where  children  may  be  taught  as  well  to 
do  something  towards  their  living  as  to  read  and  write.* 

§  26.  Education  was  to  be  universal,  but  chiefly  with 
the  object  of  bringing  to  the  front  the  clever  sons  of  poor 
parents.  The  rule  he  would  lay  down  is  "  that  all  children  of 
above  seven  years  old  may  be  presented  to  this  kind  of 
education,  none  being  to  be  excluded  by  reason  of  the 
poverty  and  unability  of  their  parents,  for  hereby  it  hath  come 
to  pass  that  many  are  now  holding  the  plough  which  might 
have  been  made  fit  to  steer  the  state."! 

*  Later  in  the  century  Locke  recommended  that  "working  schools 
should  be  set  up  in  every  parish,"  {see  Fox-Bourne's  Locke,  or  Cambridge 
edition  of  the  Thoughts  c.  Ed.,  App.  A,  p.  189).  The  Quakers  seem  to 
have  early  taken  up  "  industrious  education."  John  Bellers,  whose 
Proposals  for  Raising  a  College  of  Industry  {l6g6)  was  reprinted  by  RobL 
Owen,  has  some  very  good  notions.  After  advising  that  boys  and  girls 
be  taught  to  knit,  spin,  &c.,  and  the  bigger  boys  turning,  &c.,  he  says, 
"  Thus  the  Hand  employed  brings  Profit,  the  Reason  used  in  it  makes 
wise,  and  the  Will  subdued  makes  them  good  "  (Proposals,  p.  18).  Years 
afterwards  in  a  Letter  to  the  Yearly  Meeting  (dated  1723),  he  says,  "  It 
may  be  observed  that  some  of  the  Boys  in  Friends'  Workhouse  in 
Cierkenwell  by  their  present  employment  of  spinning  are  capable  to 
earn  their  own  living." 

t  Petty  does  not  lose  siglit  of  the  body.     The  "  educands  "  are  to 


212  WRITERS  BEFORE  LOCKE. 

Milton  and  School-Reform. 

§  27.  From  these  enthusiasts  for  realities  we  find  a 
change  when  we  turn  to  their  contemporary,  a  schoolmaster 
and  author  of  a  Latin  Accidence,  who  was  perhaps  the 
most  notable  Englishman  who  ever  kept  a  school  or  pub- 
lished a  school-book. 

§  28.  Milton  was  not  only  a  great  poet:  he  was  also  a  great 
scholar.  Everything  he  said  or  wrote  bore  traces  of  his 
learning.  The  world  of  books  then  rather  than  the  world 
of  the  senses  is  his  world.  He  has  benefited  as  he  says 
"  among  old  renowned  authors  "  and  "  his  inclination  leads 
him  not "  to  read  modern  Janvas  and  Didatiics,  or 
apparently  the  writings  of  any  of  his  contemporaries  includ- 
ing those  of  his  great  countryman.  Bacon.  But,  as 
Professor  Laurie  reminds  us,  no  man,  not  even  a  Milton, 
however  he  may  ignore  the  originators  of  ideas  can  keep 
himself  outside  the  influence  of  the  ideas  themselves  when 
they  are  in   the  air;    and    so  we   find   Milton   using   his 


*'  use  such  exercises  whether  in  work  or  for  recreation  as  tend  to  the 
health,  agility,  and  strength  of  their  bodies." 

I  have  quoted  Petty  from  the  very  valuable  collection  of  English 
writings  on  Education  reprinted  in  Henry  Barnard's  English  Pedagogy, 
2  vols.  Petty  is  in  Vol.  I.  In  this  vol.  we  have  plenty  of  evidence  of 
the  working  of  the  Baconian  spirit ;  e.g.,  we  find  Sir  Matthew  Hale  in 
&  Letter  of  Advice  to  his  Grandchildren,  written  in  1678,  saying  that  there 
is  little  use  or  improvement  in  "  notional  speculations  in  logic  or 
philosophy  delivered  by  others ;  the  rather  because  bare  speculations 
and  notions  have  little  experience  and  external  observation  to  confiim 
them,  and  they  rarely  fix  the  minds  especially  of  young  men.  But  that 
part  of  philosophy  that  is  real  may  be  improved  and  confirmed  by  daily 
observation,  and  is  more  stable  and  yet  more  certain  and  delightful,  and 
goes  along  with  a  roan  all  his  life,  whatever  employment  or  profession 
be  undertakes. " 


WRITERS   BEFORE   LOCKE.  21 3 

M.  as  spokesman  of  Christian  Realists. 

incomparable  power  of  expression  in  the  service  of  the 
Realists. 

§  29.  But  brief  he  endeavours  to  be,  and  paying  the 
Horatian  penalty  he  becomes  obscure.  In  the  "few 
observations  which  flowered  off  and  were  the  burnishing 
of  many  studious  and  contemplative  years,"  Milton  touches 
only  on  the  bringing  up  of  gentlemen's  sons  between  the 
ages  of  12  and  21,  and  his  suggestions  do  not,  like  those  of 
Comenius,  deal  with  the  education  of  the  people,  or  of  both 
sexes.*  This  Umit  of  age,  sex,  and  station  deprives  Milton's 
plan  of  much  of  its  interest,  as  the  absence  of  detail  deprives 
it  of  much  of  its  value. 

§  30.  Still,  we  find  in  the  Tractate  a  very  great  advance 
on  the  ideas  current  at  the  Renascence.  Learning  is  no 
longer  the  aim  of  education  but  is  regarded  simply  as  a 
means.  No  finer  expression  has  been  given  in  our  litera- 
ture to  the  main  thesis  of  the  Christian  and  of  the  Realist 
and  to  the  Realist's  contempt  of  verbalism,  than  this  :  "  The 
end  of  learning  is  to  repair  the  ruins  of  our  first  parents  by 
regaining  to  know  God  aright,  and  out  of  that  knowledge  to 
love  Him,  to  imitate  Him,  to  be  like  Him,  as  we  may  the 
nearest  by  possessing  our  souls  of  true  virtue,  which  being 
united  to  the  heavenly  grace  of  faith  makes  up  the  highest 
perfection.  But  because  our  understanding  cannot  in  this 
body  found  itself  but  on  sensible  things,  nor  arrive  so  clearly 
to  the  knowledge  of  God  and  things  invisible,  as  by  orderly 
conning  over  the  visible  and  inferior  creature,  the  same 
method  is  necessarily  to  be  followed  in  all  discreet  teaching. 
And  seeing  every  Nation  affords  not  experience  and  tradition 

*  "  In  this  respect,"  says  Professor  Masson,  "  the  passion  and  the 
projects  of  Comenius  were  a  world  wider  than  Milton's."  (Z.  of  M, 
iij.  P-  237-) 


214  WRITERS   BEFORE  LOCKE. 

Language  an  instrument.    Object  of  education. 

enough  for  all  kind  of  learning,  therefore  we  are  chiefly  taught 
the  languages  of  those  people  who  have  at  any  time  been 
most  industrious  after  wisdom  ;  so  that  language  is  but  the 
instrument  conveying  to  us  things  useful  to  be  known. 
And  though  a  linguist  should  pride  himself  to  have  all  the 
tongues  that  Babel  cleft  the  world  into,  yet,  if  he  have  not 
studied  the  solid  things  in  them  as  well  as  the  words  and 
lexicons,  he  were  nothing  so  much  to  be  esteemed  a  learned 
man  as  any  yeoman  or  tradesman  competently  wise  in  his 
mother-dialect  only." 

§  31.  The  several  propositions  here  implied  have  thus 
been  "disentangled"  by  Professor  Laurie  (y<?>^«  Milton  in 
Addresses^  &c.,  p.  167). 

1.  The  aim  of  education  is  the  knowledge  of  God  and 
likeness  to  God. 

2.  Likeness  to  God  we  attain  by  possessing  our  souls  o£ 
true  virtue  and  by  the  Heavenly  Grace  of  Faith. 

3.  Knowledge  of  God  we  attain  by  the  study  of  the 
visible  things  of  God. 

4.  Teaching  then  has  for  its  aim  this  knowledge. 

5.  Language  is  merely  an  instrument  or  vehicle  for  the 
knowledge  of  things. 

6.  The  linguist  may  be  less  learned  {i.e.,  educated)  in  the 
true  sense  than  a  man  who  can  make  good  use  of  his 
mother-tongue  though  he  knows  no  other. 

§  32.  Elsewhere,  Milton  gives  his  idea  of  "a  complete 
and  generous  education ; "  it  "fits  a  man  to  perform  justly, 
skilfully,  and  magnanimously  all  the  offices  both  private  and 
public  of  Peace  and  War."  (Browning's  edition,  p.  8.) 
Here  and  indeed  in  all  that  Milton  says  we  feel  that  "  the 
noble  moral  glow  that  pervades  the  Tractate  on  Education, 
the  mood  of  magnanimity  in  which  it  is  conceived  and  written, 


WRITERS  BEFORE  LOCKE.  21 5 

M.  for  barrack  life  and  Verbal  Realism. 

and  the  faith  it  inculcates  in  the  powers  of  the  young  human 
spirit,  if  rightly  nurtured  and  directed,  are  merits  everlasting." 
(Masson  iij,  p.  252.) 

§  33.  But  in  this  moral  glow  and  in  an  intense  hatred  of 
verbalism  lie  as  it  seems  to  me  the  chief  merits  of  the 
Tractate.  The  practical  suggestions  are  either  incompre- 
hensible or  of  doubtful  wisdom.  The  reforming  of  educa- 
tion was,  as  Milton  says,  one  of  the  greatest  and  noblest 
designs  that  could  be  thought  on,  but  he  does  not  take  the 
right  road  when  he  proposes  for  every  city  in  England  a 
joint  school  and  university  for  about  120  boarders.  The 
advice  to  keep  boys  between  1 2  and  2 1  in  this  barrack  life 
I  consider,  with  Professor  Laurie,  to  be  "  fundamentally 
unsound  ; "  and  the  project  of  uniting  the  military  training 
of  Sparta  with  the  humanistic  tiaining  of  Athens  seems  to 
me  a  pure  chimaera. 

§  34.  When  we  come  to  instruction  we  find  that  Milton 
after  announcing  the  distinctive  principle  of  the  Realists 
proves  to  be  himself  the  last  survivor  of  the  Verbal  Realists. 
(See  supra,  p.  25).     No  doubt 

*'  His  daily  teachers  had  been  woods  and  rills," 

but  his  thoughts  had  been  even  more  in  his  books ;  and  for 
the  young  he  sketches  out  a  purely  bookish  curriculum. 
The  young  are  to  learn  about  things,  but  they  are  to  learn 
through  books ;  and  the  only  books  to  which  Milton 
attaches  importance  are  written  in  Latin,  Greek,  or  Hebrew. 
He  held,  probably  with  good  reason,  that  far  too  much 
time  "  is  now  bestowed  in  pure  trifling  at  grammar  and 
sophistry."  "  We  do  amiss,"  he  says,  "  to  spend  7  or  8 
years  merely  in  scraping  together  so  much  miserable  Latin 
and  Greek  as  might  be  learned  otherwise  easily  and  delight- 


2l6  WRITERS  BEFORE  LOCKE. 

Milton  succeeded  as  man  not  master. 

fully  in  one  year."  Without  an  explanation  of  the 
•'  otherwise  "  this  statement  is  a  truism,  and  what  Milton 
says  further  hardly  amounts  to  an  explanation.  His  plan, 
if  plan  it  can  be  called,  is  as  follows. :  "  If  after  some  pre- 
paratory grounds  of  speech  by  their  certain  forms  got  into 
memory,  the  boys  were  led  to  the  praxis  thereof  in  some 
chosen  short  book  lessoned  throughly  to  them,  they  might 
then  proceed  to  learn  the  substance  of  good  things  and  arts 
in  due  order,  which  would  bring  the  whole  language  quickly 
into  their  power.  This,"  adds  Milton,  "  I  take  to  be  the 
most  rational  and  most  profitable  way  of  learning  languages." 
It  is,  however,  not  the  most  intelligible. 

§  35.  "  I  doubt  not  but  ye  shall  have  more  ado  to  drive 
our  dullest  and  laziest  youth,  our  stocks  and  stubbs,  from 
the  infinite  desire  of  such  a  happy  nurture  than  we  have 
now  to  hale  and  drag  our  choicest  and  hopefuUest  wits  to 
that  asinine  feast  of  sow  thistles  and  brambles  which  is 
commonly  set  before  them  as  all  the  food  and  entertainment 
of  their  tenderest  and  most  docible  age."  We  cannot  but 
wonder  whether  this  belief  survived  the  experience  of  "  the 
pretty  garden-house  in  Aldersgate."  From  the  little  we  are 
told  by  his  nephew  and  old  pupil  Edward  Phillips  we 
should  infer  that  Milton  was  not  unsuccessful  as  a  school- 
master. In  this  we  have  a  striking  proof  how  much  more 
important  is  the  teacher  than  the  teaching.  A  character 
such  as  Milton's  in  which  we  find  the  noblest  aims 
united  with  untiring  energy  in  pursuit  of  them  could  noi 
but  dominate  the  impressionable  minds  of  young  people 
brought  under  its  influeiice.  But  whatever  success  he 
met  with  could  not  have  been  due  to  the  things  he  taught 
nor  to  his  method  in  teaching  them.  In  spite  of  the  '*  moral 
glow "  about  his  recommendations  they  are  "not  a  bow  for 


WRITERS  BEFORE  LOCKE.         217 

He  did  not  advance  Science  of  Education. 

every  [or  any]  man  to  shoot  in  that  counts  himself  a 
teacher." 

§  36.  Nor  did  he  do  much  for  the  science  of  education. 
His  scheme  is  vitiated,  as  Mark  Pattison  says,  by  "the 
information  fallacy."  In  the  literary  instruction  there  is  no 
thought  of  training  the  faculties  of  all  or  the  special 
faculties  of  the  individual.  "  It  requires  much  observation 
of  young  minds  to  discover  that  the  rapid  inculcation  of 
unassimilable  information  stupefies  the  faculties  instead  of 
training  them,"  says  Pattison ;  and  Milton  absorbed  by 
his  own  thoughts  and  the  thoughts  of  the  ancients  did  not 
observe  the  minds  of  the  young,  and  knew  little  of  the 
powers  of  any  mind  but  his  own. 

For  information  the  youths  are  not  required  to  observe 
for  themselves  but  are  to  be  taught  "  a  general  compact  of 
physicks."  "  Also  in  course  might  be  read  to  them  out  of 
some  not  tedious  writer  the  Institution  of  Physick ;  that 
they  may  know  the  tempers,  the  humours,  the  seasons,  and 
how  to  manage  a  crudity." 

§  37.  Even  the  study  of  the  classics  is  advocated  by 
Milton  on  false  grounds.  If,  like  the  Port-Royalists,  he  had 
recommended  the  study  of  the  classical  authors  for  the 
sake  of  pure  Latin  and  Greek  or  as  models  of  literary 
style,  the  means  would  have  been  suited  to  the  end ; 
but  it  was  very  different  when  he  directed  boys  to  study 
Virgil  and  Columella  in  order  to  learn  about  bees  and 
farming.  In  after-hfe  they  would  find  these  authorities  a 
little  out  of  date ;  and  if  they  ever  attempted  to  improve 
tillage,  "  to  recover  the  bad  soil  and  to  remedy  the  waste 
that  is  made  of  good,  which  was  one  of  Hercules's  praises," 
they  would  have  found  a  knowledge  of  the  methods  of 
Hercules  about  as  useful  as  of  the  methods  of  the  Romans. 


2l8  WRITERS  BEFORE  LOCKE. 

Milton  an  educator  of  mankind. 

§  38.  Milton  was  then  a  reformer  "for  his  own  hand;' 
and  notwithstanding  his  moral  and  intellectual  elevation 
and  his  superb  power  of  rhetoric,  he  seems  to  me  a  less 
useful  writer  on  education  than  the  humble  Puritans  whoui 
he  probably  would  not  deign  to  read  In  his  haughty  self- 
reliance,  he,  like  Carlyle  with  whom  Seeley  has  well 
compared  him  {Lectures  and  Addresses  :  Milton),  addressed 
his  contemporaries  de  haut  en  bas,  and  though  ready  to 
teach  could  learn  only  among  the  old  renowned  authors 
with  whom  he  associated  himself  and  we  associate  him. 

§  39.  Judged  from  our  present  standpoint  the  Tractate  is 
found  with  many  weaknesses  to  be  strong  in  this,  that  it  co- 
ordinates physical,  moral,  mental  and  aesthetic  training. 

§  40.  But  nothing  of  Milton's  can  be  judged  by  our 
ordinary  canons.  He  soars  far  above  them  and  raises  us 
with  him  "  to  mysterious  altitudes  above  the  earth  "  {supra, 
p.  153,  note).  Whatever  we  little  people  may  say  about  the 
suggestions  of  the  Tractate,  Milton  will  remain  one  of  the 
great  educators  of  mankind.* 


*  Of  Education.  To  Master  Samuel  Hartlib  ("the  Tractate "  as  it 
is  usually  called),  was  published  by  Milton  first  in  1644,  and  again  hi 
1673.     See  Oscar  Browning's  edition,  Cambridge  Univ.  Press. 


XIII. 

LOCKE. 

(1632-1704). 

§  1.  When  an  English  University  established  an  exauii- 
nation  for  future  teachers,*  the  "  special  subjects  "  first  set 
were  "  Locke  and  Dr.  Arnold. "  The  selection  seems  to  me 
a  very  happy  one.  Arnold  greatly  affected  the  spirit  and 
even  the  organization  of  our  public  schools  at  a  time  when 
the  old  schools  were  about  to  have  new  life  infused  into 
them,  and  when  new  schools  were  to  be  started  on  the 
model  of  the  old.  He  is  perhaps  the  greatest  educator  of 
the  English  type,  i.e.,  the  greatest  educator  who  had 
accepted  the  system  handed  down  to  him  and  tried  to 
make  the  best  of  it.  Locke  on  the  other  hand,  whose 
reputation  is  more  European  than  English,  belongs  rather 
to  the  continental  type.  Like  his  disciple  Rousseau  and 
like  Rousseau's  disciples  the  French  Revolutionists,  Locke 
refused  the  traditional  system  and  appealed  from  tradition 
and  authority  to  reason.  We  English  revere  Arnold,  but 
so  long  as  the  history  of  education  continues  to  be  written, 
as  it  has  been  written  hitherto,  on  the  Continent,  the  only 
Englishman  celebrated  in  it  will  be  as  now  not  the  great 
schoolmaster  but  the  great  philosopher. 

•  The  University  of  Cambridge.  The  first  examinatiuii  v<a.>^  «> 
Juue,  iSSo. 


220  LOCKE. 

Locke's  two  main  characteristics. 

§  2.  In  order  to  understand  Locke  we  must  always 
bear  in  mind  what  I  may  call  his  two  main  characteristics ; 
I  St,  his  craving  to  know  and  to  speak  the  truth  an'i  the 
whole  truth  in  everything,  truth  not  for  a  purpose  bJt  for 
itself* ;  2nd,  his  perfect  trust  in  the  reason  as  the  guide, 
the  only  guide,  to  truth,  f 

§  3.  I  St.  Those  who  have  not  reflected  much  on  the  sub- 
ject will  naturally  suppose  that  the  desire  to  know  the  truth 
is  common  to  all  men,  and  the  desire  to  speak  the  truth 
common  to  most.  But  this  is  very  far  from  being  the  case. 
If  we  had  any  earnest  desire  for  truth  we  should  examine 
things  carefully  before  we  admitted  them  as  truths;  in 
other  words  our  opinions  would  be  the  growth  of  long  and 
energetic  thought.  But  instead  of  this  they  are  formed  for 
the  most  part  quite  carelessly  and  at  haphazard,  and  we 
value  them  not  on  account  of  their  supposed  agreement 
with  fact  but  because  though  "  poor  things  "  they  are  "  our 
own "  or  those  of  our  sect  or  party.     Locke  on  the  other 


*  "  Believe  it,  my  good  friend,  to  love  truth  for  truth's  sake  is  the 
principal  part  of  human  perfection  in  this  world  and  the  seed-plot  of  all 
other  virtues."  L.  to  Bolde,  quoted  by  Fowler,  Locke,  p.  120,  This 
shows  us  that  according  to  Locke  "the  principal  part  of  human 
perfection  "  is  to  be  found  in  the  intellect. 

t  Lady  Masham  seems  to  consider  these  two  characteristics  identical. 
She  wrote  to  Leclerc  of  Locke  after  his  death  :  "  He  was  always,  in  the 
greatest  and  in  the  smallest  affairs  of  human  life,  as  well  as  in  specula- 
tive opinions,  disposed  to  follow  reason,  whosoever  it  were  that 
suj;2°s'°d  it ;  he  being  ever  a  faithful  servant,  I  had  almost  said  a  slave, 
to  truth  ;  never  abandoning  her  for  anything  else,  and  following  her 
fot  her  own  sake  purely  "  (quoted  by  Fox-Bourne).  But  it  is  one 
tiling  to  desire  truth,  and  another  to  think  one's  own  reasoning  powei 
the  sole  means  of  obtaining  it. 


LOCKE.  221 

1st  Truth  for  itself.    2nd  Reason  for  Truth. 

hand  was  always  endeavouring  to  get  at  the  truth  for  its 
own  sake.  This  separated  him  from  men  in  general.  And 
he  brought  great  powers  of  mind  to  bear  on  the  investiga- 
tion.    This  raised  him  above  them. 

§  4.  2nd.  Locke's  second  characteristic  was  his  entire 
rehance  on  the  guidance  of  reason.  "The  faculty  of 
reasoning,"  says  he,  "  seldom  or  never  deceives  those  who 
trust  to  it."  Elsewhere,  borrowing  a  metaphor  from 
Solomon  (Prov.  xx,  27),  he  speaks  of  this  faculty  as  "the 
candle  of  the  Lord  set  up  by  Himself  in  men's  minds." 
(F.  B.  ij.  129).  In  a  fine  passage  in  the  Conduct  of  the 
Understanding  he  calls  it  "  the  touchstone  of  truth "  (§  iij, 
Fowler's  edition,  p.  10).  He  even  goes  so  far  in  his 
correspondence  with  Molyneux  as  to  maintain  that  intel- 
ligent honest  men  cannot  possibly  differ.* 

But  if  we  consider  it  from  one  point  of  view  the  treatise 
on  the  Conduct  of  the  Understanding  is  itself  a  witness  that 
human  reason  is  a  compass  liable  to  incalculable  variations 
and  likely  enough  to  shipwreck  those  who  steer  by  it  alone. 
In  this  book  Locke  shows  us  that  to  come  to  a  true  result 
the  understanding  (i)  must  be  perfectly  trained,  (2)  must 
not  be  affected  by  any  feeling  in  favour  of  or  against  any 


*  "  I  am  far  from  imagining  myself  infallible  ;  but  yet  I  should  be 
loth  to  differ  from  any  thinking  man ;  being  fully  persuaded  there  are 
vciy  few  things  of  pure  speculation  wherein  two  thinking  men  who 
imparlially  seek  truth  can  differ  if  they  give  themselves  the  leisure  to 
examine  their  hypotheses  and  understand  one  another  "  (L.  to  W.  M., 
26  Dec,  1692).  Again  he  writes  :  "  I  am  persuaded  that  upon  debate 
you  and  I  cannot  be  of  two  opinions,  nor  I  think  any  two  men  used  to 
think  with  freedom,  who  really  prefer  truth  to  opiniatrety  and  a  little 
foolish  vain-glory  of  not  having  made  a  mistake"  (L.  to  W.  M., 
3  Sept.,  1694). 
17 


222  LOCKE. 

Locke's  definition  of  knowledge. 


particular  result,  and  (3)  must  have  before  it  all  the  data 
necessary  for  forming  a  judgment.  In  practice  these 
conditions  are  seldom  (if  ever)  fulfilled  ;  and  Locke  himself, 
when  he  wants  an  instance  of  a  mind  that  can  acquiesce  in 
the  certainty  of  its  conclusions,  takes  it  from  "angels 
and  separate  spirits  who  may  be  endowed  with  more  com- 
prehensive faculties  "  than  we  are  (C.  of  U.  §  iij,  3). 

§  5.  It  seems  to  me  then  that  Locke  much  exaggerates 
the  power  of  the  individual  reason  for  getting  at  the  truth. 
And  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  one  function  of  the 
mind  is  to  unduly  diminish  the  importance  of  the  rest. 
Thus  we  find  that  in  Locke's  scheme  of  education  little 
thought  is  taken  for  the  play  of  the  affections  and  feelings  ; 
and  as  for  the  imagination  it  is  treated  merely  as  a  source 
of  mischief. 

§  6.  Locke,  as  it  has  often  been  pointed  out,  differs  from 
the  schoolmaster  in  making  small  account  of  the  know- 
ledge to  be  acquired  by  those  under  education.  But  it  has 
not  been  so  often  remarked  that  the  fundamental  difference 
is  much  deeper  than  this  and  lies  in  the  conception  of 
knowledge  itself.  With  the  ordinary  schoolmaster  the  test 
of  knowledge  is  the  power  of  reproduction.  Whatever 
pupils  can  reproduce  with  difficulty  they  know  imperfectly  ; 
whatever  they  can  reproduce  with  ease  they  know  thoroughly. 
But  Locke's  definition  of  knowledge  confines  it  to  a  much 
smaller  area.  According  to  him  knowledge  is  "the  internal 
perception  of  the  mind"  (Locke  to  Stillingfleet  v.  F.  B.  ij, 
432).  "Knowing  is  seemg;  and  if  it  be  so,  it  is  madness 
to  persuade  ourselves  we  do  so  by  another  man's  eyes,  let 
him  use  never  so  many  words  to  tell  us  that  what  he  asserts 
is  very  visible.  Till  we  ourselves  see  it  with  our  own  eyes, 
and  perceive  it  by  our  own  understan'lings,  we  are  as  much 


LOCKE.  223 

Knowing  without  seeing. 

in  the  dark  and  as  void  of  knowledge  as  before,  let  us  believe 
any  learned  authors  as  much  as  we  will "  (C.  of  U.  §  24).* 

§  7.  Here  Locke  makes  no  distinction  between  different 
classes  of  truths.  But  surely  very  important  differences 
6x1:5 1. 

About  some  physical  facts  our  knowledge  is  at  once 
most  certain  and  most  definite  when  we  derive  it  through 
the  evidence  of  our  own  senses.  "  Seeing  is  believing,"  says 
the  proverb.  It  may  be  believing,  but  it  is  not  knowing. 
That  certainty  which  we  call  knowledge  we  often  arrive  at 
better  by  the  testimony  of  others  than  by  that  of  our 
own  senses. 

Miss  Martineau  in  her  Autobiography  tells  us  that  as  a 
child  of  ten  she  entirely  and  unaccountably  failed  to  see  a 
comet  which  was  visible  to  all  other  people ;  but,  although 
her  own  senses  were  at  fault,  the  evidence  for  the  'comet 
was  so  conclusive  that  she  may  be  said  to  have  known 
there  was  a  comet  in  the  sky. 

*  Compare  Carlyle  : — "  Except  thine  own  eye  have  got  to  see  it, 
except  thine  own  soul  have  victoriously  struggled  to  clear  vision  and 
belief  of  it,  what  is  the  thing  seen  or  the  thing  believed  by  another  or 
by  never  so  many  others  ?  Alas,  it  is-  not  thine,  though  thou  look  on 
it,  brag  about  it,  and  bully  and  fight  about  it  till  thou  die,  striving  to 
persuade  tbyself  and  all  men  how  much  it  is  thine !  Not  it  is  thine,  but 
only  a  windy  echo  and  tradition  of  it  bedded  [an  echo  beddedT\  in 
hypocrisy,  ending  sure  enough  in  tragical  futility  is  thine."  Froude's 
7'hos.  Carlyle^  ij,  10.  Similarly  Locke  wrote  to  Bolde  in  1699  : — "  To 
be  learned  in  the  lump  by  other  men's  thoughts,  and  to  be  right  by 
sapng  after  others  is  much  the  easier  and  quieter  way ;  but  how  a 
rational  man  that  should  enquire  and  know  for  himself  can  content 
himself  with  a  faith  or  religion  taken  upon  trust,  or  with  such  a  servile 
submission  of  his  understanding  as  to  admit  all  and  nothing  else  but 
what  fashion  makes  passable  among  men,  is  to  me  astonishing." 
Quoted  by  Fowler,  Locke^  p.  118. 


224  LOCKE. 

Discentem  credere  oportet. 

On  sufificient  evidence  we  can  know  anything,  just  as  we 
know  there  is  a  great  water-fall  at  Niagara  though  we  may 
never  have  crossed  the  Atlantic.  But  we  cannot  be  so  cer- 
tain simply  on  the  evidence  of  our  senses.  If  we  trusted 
entirely  to  them  we  might  take  the  earth  for  a  plane  and 
"know"  that  the  sun  moved  round  it. 

§  8.  But  Locke  probably  considers  as  the  subject  of  know- 
ledge not  so  much  physical  facts  as  the  great  body  of  truths 
which  are  ascertained  by  the  intellect.  It  is  the  eye  of  the 
mind  by  which  alone  knowledge  is  to  be  gained.  Of  these 
truths  the  purest  specimens  are  the  truths  of  geometry.  It 
may  be  said  that  only  those  who  have  followed  the  proofs 
know  that  the  area  of  the  square  on  the  side  opposite  the 
right  angle  in  a  right-angled  triangle  is  equal  to  the  sum  of 
the  squares  on  the  other  sides.  But  even  in  pure  reasoning 
like  th'is,  the  tiro  often  seems  to  see  what  he  does  ■  not  really 
see ;  and  where  his  own  reason  brings  him  to  a  conclusion 
different  from  the  one  established  he  knows  only  that  he  is 
mistaken. 

§  9.  It  must  be  admitted  then  that  first-hand  knowledge, 
knowledge  derived  from  the  vision  of  the  eye  or  of  the 
mind,  is  not  the  only  knowledge  the  young  require. 
Every  learner  must  take  things  on  trust,  as  even  Lord 
Bacon  admits.  Discentem  credere  oportet.  To  usd  I^ocke's 
own  words  : — "  I  do  not  say,  to  be  a  good  geographer  that 
a  man  should  visit  every  mountain,  river,  promontory,  and 
creek  upon  the  face  of  the  earth,  view  the  buildings  and 
survey  the  land  everywhere  as  if  he  were  going  to  make  a 
purchase  "  (C.  of  U.,  iij,  adf.).  So  that  even  according  to 
Locke's  own  shewing  we  must  use  the  eyes  of  others  as 
well  as  our  own,  and  this  is  true  not  in  geography  only,  but 
in  all  other  branches  o^  knowledge. 


LOCKE.  225 

L.'s  "Knowledge"  and  the  schoolmaster's. 

§  10.  But  are  we  driven  to  the  alternative  of  agreeing 
either  with  Locke  or  with  the  schoolmaster  ?  I  do  not  see 
that  we  are.  The  thought  which  underlies  Locke's  system 
of  education  is  this :  true  knowledge  can  be  acquired  only 
by  the  exercise  of  the  reason :  in  childhood  the  reasoning 
power  is  not  strong  enough  for  the  pursuit  of  knowledge : 
knowledge,  therefore,  is  out  of  the  question  at  that  age, 
and  the  only  thing  to  be  thought  of  is  the  formation  of  ^ 
habits.  Opposed  to  this  we  have  the  schoolmaster's  ideal 
which  is  governed  by  examinations.  According  to  this  ideal 
the  object  of  the  school  course  is  to  give  certain  "know- 
ledge," linguistic  and  other,  and  to  fix  it  in  the  memory  in 
such  a  manner  that  it  can  be  displayed  on  the  day  of 
examination.  "  Knowledge  "  of  this  kind  often  makes  no 
demand  whatever  on  the  reasoning  faculty,  or  indeed  on  any 
faculty  but  that  of  remembering  and  reproducing  what  the 
learner  has  been  told ;  in  extreme  cases  the  memory  of  mere 
sounds  or  S3anbols  suffices. 

But  after  all  we  are  not  compelled  to  choose  between  these 
two  theories.  Take,  e.g.,  the  subject  which  Locke  has  men- 
tioned, geography.  The  schoolmasters  of  the  olden  time 
began  with  the  use  of  the  globes,  a  plan  which,  by  the  way, 
Locke  himself  seems  to  have  winked  at.  His  disciple 
Molyneux  tells  him  of  the  performances  of  the  small 
Molyneux.  When  he  was  but  just  turned  five  he  could 
read  perfectly  well,  and  on  the  globe  could  have  traced  out 
and  pointed  at  all  the  noted  ports,  countries,  and  cities  of 
the  world,  both  land  and  sea ;  by  five  and  a  half  could 
perform  many  of  the  plainest  problems  on  the  globe,  as  the 
longitude  and  latitude,  the  Antipodes,  the  time  with  them 
and  other  countries,  &c.  (Molyneux  to  L.,  24th  August, 
2695.)      Here  we  find  a  child  brought  up,  without  any 


226  LOCKE. 

"Knowledge"  in  Geography. 

protest  from  Locke,  on  mere  examination  knowledge,  which 
according  to  Locke  himself  is  not  knowledge  at  all.  It 
is  strange  that  Locke  did  not  at  once  point  out  to  Moly« 
neux  that  the  child  was  not  really  learning  what  the  father 
supposed  him  to  be  learning.  When  the  child  turned  o\'er 
the  plaster  ball  and  found  the  word  "  Paris,"  the  father 
no  doubt  attributed  to  the  child  much  that  was  in  his 
own  mind  only.  To  the  child  "  the  Globe  "  (as  Rousseau 
afterwards  said),  was  nothing  but  a  plaster  ball ;  *'  Paris  " 
was  nothing  but  some  letters  marked  on  that  ball.  Come- 
nius  had  already  got  a  notion  how  children  may  be  given 
some  knowledge  of  geography.  "  Children  begm  geo- 
graphy," said  he,  "when  they  get  to  understand  what  a  hill, 
a  valley,  a  field,  a  river,  a  village,  a  town  is."  {Supra, 
p.  145.)  When  this  beginning  has  been  made,  geographical 
knowledge  is  at  once  possible  to  the  child,  and  not 
before. 

Perfect  knowledge  in  geography,  as  in  most  other  things, 
is  out  of  every  one's  reach.  Nobody  knows,  e.g.,  all  that 
could  be  known  about  Paris.  The  knowledge  its  inhabi- 
tants have  of  it  is  very  various,  but  in  all  cases  this  know- 
ledge is  far  greater  than  that  of  a  visitor.  The  visitor's 
knowledge  again  is  far  greater  than  that  of  strangers  who 
have  never  seen  Paris.  Nobody,  then,  can  know  everything 
even  about  Paris ;  but  a  child  who  knows  what  a  large  town 
is,  and  can  fancy  to  himself  a  big  town  called  Paris,  which" 
is  the  biggest  and  most  important  town  in  France  has  some 
knowledge  about  it.  This  must  be  maintained  against 
Locke.  Against  the  schoolmaster  it  may  be  pointed  out 
that  making  an  Eskimo  say  the  words : — "  Paris  is  the 
capital  of  France,"  would  not  be  giving  him  any  knowledge 
at  all ;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  many  "  lessons "  in 


LOCKE.  227 

For  children,  health  and  habits. 

the  school-room.  If  a  common  sailor  were  to  teach  an 
Eskimo  English,  he  would  very  likely  suppose  that  when  he 
had  taught  the  sounds  *'  Paris  is  the  capital  of  France,"  he 
had  conveyed  to  his  pupil  all  the  ideas  which  those  sounds 
suggested  to  his  own  mind.  A  common  schoolmaster  may 
fall  into  a  similar  error. 

§  -II.  In  the  most  celebrated  work  which  has  been 
affected  by  the  Thoughts  of  Locke,  Rousseau's  Eviile,  we 
find  childhood  treated  in  a  manner  altogether  different  from 
youth :  the  child's  education  is  mainly  physical,  and 
instruction  is  not  given  till  the  age  of  twelve.  Locke's 
system  on  first  sight  seems  very  different  to  this,  but  there 
is  a  deeper  connection  between  the  two  than  is  usually 
observed.  We  have  seen  that  Locke  allowed  nothing  to  be 
knowledge  that  was  not  acquired- by  the  perception  of  the 
intellect.  But  in  children  the  intellectual  power  is  not  yet 
developed;  so  according  to  Locke  knowledge  properly  so- 
called  is  not  within  their  reach.  What  then  can  the 
educator  do  for  them  ?  He  can  prepare  them  for  the  age 
of  reason  in  two  ways,  by  caring  first  for  their  physical  health, 
second  for  the  formation  of  good  habits. 

§  12.  I  St.  On  the  Continent  Locke  has  always  been  con- 
sidered one  of  the  first  advocates  of  physical  education,  and 
he  does,  it  is  true,  give  physical  education  the  first  place,  a 
feature  in  his  system,  which  we  naturally  connect  with  his 
study  of  medicine,  and  also  with  the  trouble  he  had  all  his  life 
w  ilh  his  own  health.  But  care  of  the  body,  and  especially 
bodily  exercises,  were  always  much  thought  of  in  this 
country,  and  the  main  writers  on  education  before  Locke, 
e.g.,  Sir  Thos.  Elyot,  Mulcaster,  Milton,  were  very  emphatic 
about  physical  training. 

In  the  autobiography  of  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  we 


228  LOCKE. 

Everything  educative  forms  habits. 

may  see  what  attention  was  paid  in  Locke's  own  century  lo 
this  part  of  education.* 

§  13.  2nd.  "That,  and  that  only,  is  educative  whicli 
moulds  forms  or  modifies  the  soul  or  mind."  (Mark 
Pattison  in  New  Quarterly  Magazine,  January,  1880.) 

Here  we  have  a  proposition  which  is  perhaps  seldom 
denied,  but  very  commonly  ignored  by  those  who  bring 
up  the  young.  But  Locke  seems  to  have  been  entirely 
possessed  with  this  notion,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  Thoughts 
is  nothing  but  a  long  application  of  it.  The  principle  which 
lies  at  the  root  of  most  of  his  advice,  he  has  himself  expressed 
as  follows  :  "  That  which  I  cannot  too  often  inculcate  is, 
that  whatever  the  matter  be  about  which  it  is  conversant 
whether  great  or  small,  the  main,  I  had  almost  said  only 
thing,  to  be  considered  irt  every  action  of  a  child  is  what 
influence  it  will  have  upon  his  mind ;  what  habit  it  tends  to, 
and  is  likely  to  settle  in  him  :  how  it  will  become  him  when 
he  is  bigger,  and  if  it  be  encouraged,  whither  it  will  lead  him 
when  he  is  grown  up."     {Thoughts,  §  107,  p.  86.) 

Here  we  see  that  Locke  differed  widely  from  the  school- 
masters of  his  time,  perhaps  of  all  time.  A  man  must  be  a 
philosopher  indeed  if  he  can  spend  his  life  in  teaching  boys, 
and  yet  always  think  more  about  what  they  will  be  and  what 
they  will  do  when  their  schooling  is  over  than  what  they  will 
know.  And  in  these  days  if  we  stopped  to  think  at  all  we 
should  be  trodden  on  by  the  examiner.t 


•  For  Rabelais,  see  p.  67  supra. 

In  the  notes  to  the  Cambridge  edition  of  the  Thou<^hts  Locke's  advic* 
on  physical  education  is  discussed  and  compared  with  the  results  of 
modem  science  by  Dr.  J.  F.  Payne. 

+  "  Examinations  directed,  as  the  paper  examinations  of  the  numeroua 


LOCKE.  229 

Confusion  about  special  cases.    Wax. 

In  this  respect  Locke  has  not  been  surpassed.  Like  his 
predecessor  Montaigne  he  took  for  his  centre  not  the  object, 
knowledge,  but  the  subject,  man.* 

§  14.  In  some  other  respects  he  does  not  seem  so  happy.  -  -.  ^ 
He  makes  Uttle  attempt  to  reach  a  scientific  standpoint  and 
to  establish  general  truths  about  our  common  human  nature. 
y'He  thinks  not  so  much  of  the  man  as  the  gentleman,  not  so 
much  of  the  common  laws  of  the  mind  as  of  the  peculiarities 
of  the  individual  child.  He  even  hints  that  differences  of 
disposition  in  children  render  treatises  on  education  defective 
if  not  useless.  "There  are  a  thousand  other  things  thai 
may  need  consideration"  he  writes  "especially  if  one  should 
take  in  the  various  tempers,  different  inclinations,  and 
particular  defaults  that  are  to  be  found  in  children  and 
prescribe  proper  remedies.  The  variety  is  so  great  that  it 
would  require  a  volume,  nor  would  that  reach  it.  Each 
man's  mind  has  some  peculiarity  as  well  as  his  face,  that 
distinguishes  him  from  all  others ;  and  there  are  possibly 
scarce  two  children  who  can  be  conducted  by  exactly  the 
same  method  :  besides  that  I  think  a  prince,  a  nobleman, 
or  an  ordinary  gentleman's  son  should  have  different  ways 
of  breeding.  But  having  had  here  only  some  general  views 
in  reference  to  the  main  end  and  aims  in  education,  and  those 
designed  for  a  gentleman's  son,  whom  being  then  very  little 
I  considered  only  as  white  paper  or  wax  to  be  moulded  and 

examining  boards  now  flourishing  are  directed,  to  finding  out  what  the 
pupil  knows,  have  the  effect  of  concentrating  the  teacher's  effort  upon  the 
least  important  part  of  his  function."     Mark  Pattison  in  N.  Quart.  A/., 
'         January,  1880. 

*  Michelet  {A^osfils,  chap.  ij.  adf.  p.  170),  says  of  Montaigne's  essay  : 
"  c'est  A€]k  une  belle  esquisse,  vive  et  forte,  une  tentative  pour  tlonner, 
non  Pobjet,  le  savoir,  mais  le  sujet,  c'est  I'homme."  ;  . 

jiX^  -Cfc-^-U^  "j^tM^ft-  eJi^iiOC^  ^^  ^-^'JiL 


230  LOCKE. 

Locke  behind  Comenius. 


fashioned  as  one  pleases,  I  have  touched  little  more  than 
those  heads  which  I  judged  necessary  for  the  breeding  of  a 
young  gentleman  of  his  condition  in  general."  {Thoughts^ 
§217,  p.  187.) 

No  language  could  bring  out  more  clearly  the  inferiority 
of  Locke's  standpoint  to  that  of  later  thinkers.  He  makes 
little  account  of  our  common  nature  and  wishes  education  to 
be  based  upon  an  estimate  of  the  peculiarities  of  the 
individual  pupil  and  of  his  social  needs.  And  no  one  with  an 
adequate  notion  of  education  could  ever  compare  the  young 
child  to  "  white  paper  or  wax."  Perhaps  the  development  of 
an  organism  was  a  conception  that  could  not  have  been 
formed  without  a  great  advance  in  physical  science.  Froebel 
who  makes  most  of  it  learnt  it  from  the  scientific  study  of 
trees  and  from  mineralogy.  We  need  not  then  be  surprised 
that  Locke  does  not  say,  as  Pestalozzi  said  a  hundred  years 
later,  "  Education  instead  of  merely  considering  what  is  to  be 
imparted  to  children  ought  to  consider  first  what  they  already 
possess."  But  if  he  had  read  Comenius  he  would  have  been 
saved  from  comparing  the  child  to  wax  or  white  paper  in  the 
hands  of  the  educator.  Comenius  had  said  :  "  Nature  has 
implanted  within  us  the  seeds  of  learning,  of  virtue,  and  of 
piety.  The  object  of  education  is  to  bring  these  seeds  to 
perfection."  {Supra,  p.  135.)  This  seems  to  me  a  higher 
conception  than  any  that  I  meet  with  in  Locke. 

§  15.  But  if  our  philosopher  did  not  learn  from  Comenius 
he  certainly  learnt  from  Montaigne.*     Indeed  Dr.  Arnstadt 

•  Pope  seems  to  contrast  Montaigne  and  Locke  : 
"  But  ask  not  to  what  doctors  I  apply  ! 
*•  Sworn  to  no  master,  of  no  sect  am  I : 
•'  As  drives  the  storm,  at  any  door  I  knock, 
"And  house  with  Montaigne  now,  or  now  with  Locke." 

Satires  iij.,  26. 


LOCKE.  231 

Humanists,  Realists,  and  Trainers. 

(v.  supra,  p.  6g)  has  put  him  into  a  series  of  thinkers  who 
have  much  in  common.  This  succession  is  as  follows  : 
Rabelais,  Montaigne,  Locke,  Rousseau  ;  and,  according  to 
Mr.  Browning's  division,  they  form  a  school  by  themselves. 
**  Thinkers  on  education,"  says  Mr.  Browning,*  "  are  rsl 
those  who  wish  to  educate  through  the  study  of  the  classics, 
or  2nd  those  who  wish  to  educate  through  the  study  of  the 
works  of  Nature,  or  3rd  those  who  aim  at  an  education 
independent  of  study  and  knowledge,  and  think  rather  of  the 
training  of  character  and  the  attaining  to  the  Greek  ideal, 
the  man  beautiful  and  good."  To  the  three  schools  Mr. 
Browning  gives  the  names  Humanist,  Realist,  and  Naturalist, 
("  nos  autres  naturalistes,"  Montaigne  says).  Locke  he  con- 
siders one  of  the  principal  writers  of  the  "naturalistic" 
school,  and  says,  Locke  "  has  given  a  powerful  bias  to  natura- 
listic education  both  in  England  and  on  the  Continent  for 
the  last  200  years."  (^Ed.  Theories,  p.  85.) 

This  use  of  the  word  "  naturalistic  "  seems  to  me  somewhat 
misleading,  or  at  best  vague,  and  it  is  a  word  overworked 
already:  so  I  should  prefer  to  speak  of  the  "developing"  or 
"  training  "  school.  The  classification  itself  certainly  has  its 
uses  but  it  must  be  employed  with  caution.  If  caught  up  by 
those  who  have  only  an  elementary  acquaintance  with  the 
subject  a  class  of  persons  apt  to  delight  in  such  arrangements 
as  an  aid  to  memory,  these  divisions  may  easily  prove  a. 
hindrance  to  light. 

§  16.  This   subject   of  classification  is   so   important  to 


Perliaps  as  Dr.  Abbott  suggests  he  took  Montaigne  as  representing 
active  and  Locke  contemplative  life. 

*See  "  An  introduction  to  the  History  of  Educational  Theories,"  by 
Oscar  Browning. 


232  LOCKE. 

Caution  against  classifiers. 

students  that  it  may  be  worth  while  to  make  a  few  remarks 
upon  it.  The  only  thoroughly  consistent  people  are  the 
people  of  fiction.  We  can  know  all  about  them.  Directly 
we  understand  their  central  thought  or  peculiarity  we  may  be 
sure  that  everything  they  say  and  do  will  be  strictly  in 
accordance  vvith  it,  will  indeed  be  explainable  by  it.  To 
take  a  bald  and  simple  instance,  directly  we  know  that  Mrs. 
Jellaby  in  Bleak  Hoitse  is  absorbed  by  her  interest  in  an 
African  Mission,  we  know  all  that  is  to  be  known  about  her; 
and  everything  she  does  or  omits  to  do  has  some  reference 
to  Borrioboola  Ghar.  But  in  real  life  not  only  are  people 
much  less  easily  understood,  but  when  we  actually  have  seized 
their  main  idea  or  peculiarity  or  interest  we  must  not  expect 
to  find  them  always  consistent :  and  they  will  say  and  do  much 
which  if  not  inconsistent  with  the  main  idea  or  peculiarity  or 
interest  has  at  least  no  connection  with  it.  Suppose,  e.g., 
you  can  make  out  with  some  certainty  that  Locke  belonged 
to  the  developing  school,  you  must  not  expect  him  to  pay 
little  heed  to  instruction  as  such.  Again,  suppose  you  find  that 
his  philosophy  was  utilitarian ;  you  must  not  suppose  that 
in  everything  he  says  he  will  be  thinking  of  utility. 

Now  the  historian  is  tempted  to  treat  real  men  and  women 
as  the  writer  of  fiction  treats  his  puppets.  Having  fastened, 
quite  correctly  let  us  suppose,  on  their  main  peculiarity  he 
considers'it  necessary  to  square  everything  with  his  theory  of 
them,  and  whatever  will  not  fall  in  with  it  he,  if  he  is 
unscrupulous,  misrepresents,  or  if  he  is  scrupulous,  suppresses. 

Again,  we  are  too  apt  to  read  into  words  meanings 
derived  from  controversies  unknown  at  the  time  when  the 
words  were  uttered.  This  is  a  well-known  fact  in  the 
history  of  religious  thought.  We  must  always  consider  not 
merely  the  words  used  but  the  time  when  they  were  used. 


LOCKE.  233 

Locke  and  development. 

What  a  man  might  say  quite  naturally  and  orthodoxly  at  one 
[)eriod  would  be  sufficient  to  convict  him  of  sympathizing 
with  some  terrible  heresy  if  uttered  half  a  century  later. 
We  find  something  like  this  in  the  history  of  education, 
If  anyone  nowadays  speaks  of  the  pleasure  with  which  as 
a  young  man  he  read  Tacitus,  he  is  understood  to  mean 
that  he  is  opposed  to  the  introduction  of  "  modern  studies  *' 
into  the  school-room.  If  on  the  other  hand  he  extols 
botany,  or  regrets  that  he  never  learned  chemistry,  this  is 
taken  for  an  assault  on  classical  instruction.  But,  of  course, 
no  such  inference  could  be  drawn  if  we  went  back  to  a  time 
when  the  antithesis  between  classics  and  natural  science 
had  not  been  accentuated.  In  many  other  instances  we 
have  to  be  on  our  guard  against  forcing  into  language 
meaning  which  belongs  rather  to  a  later  date. 

§  17.  With  these  cautions  in  mind  let  us  see  how  far 
Locke  may  be  said  (i)  to  be  a  trainer,  and  (2)  how  far  a 
utilitarian. 

§  18.  I.  Mr.  Browning  attributes  to  Rabelais,  Montaigne, 
and  Locke  the  desire  to  bring  up  a  well-developed  man 
rather  than  a  good  scholar.  But  Rabelais  certainly  craved 
for  the  knowledge  of  things ;  and  if  he  is  to  be  classed  at 
all  I  should  put  him  rather  with  the  Realists,  albeit  he  lived 
before  the  realistic  spirit  became  powerful.  Montaigne 
went  more  on  the  lines  of  developing  rather  than  teaching, 
and,  shrewd  man  of  the  world  as  he  was,  he  thought  a 
great  deal  about  the  art  of  living.  But  his  ideal  was  not 
so  much  the  man  as  the  gentleman.  This  was  true  also 
of  Locke;  and  here  we  see  some  explanation  why  both 
Montaigne  and   Locke   do   not  value   classical   learning.* 

*  "  History  and  the  mathematics,  I  think,  are  the  most  proper  and 


234  LOCKE. 

Was  Locke  a  utilitarian? 

On  the  Continent  classical  learning  has  never  been  asso- 
ciated with  the  character  of  an  accomplished  gentleman; 
and,  as  far  as  I  know,  the  conception  that  the  highest  type 
of  excellence  is  found  in  the  union  of  "  the  scholar  and  the 
gentleman "  is  peculiar  to  this  country.  In  the  society 
of  Locke's  day  this  union  does  not  Seem  to  have  been 
recognized,  and  Locke  observes :  "  A  great  part  of  the 
learning  now  in  fashion  in  the  schools  of  Europe,  and  that 
goes  ordinarily  into  the  round  of  education,  a  gentleman 
may  in  a  good  measure  be  unfurnished  with,  without  any 
great  disparagement  to  himself  or  prejudice  to  his  affairs." 
(Thoughts,  §  94,  p.  74.)  So  Locke  sought  as  the  true 
essential  for  the  young  gentleman  "prudence  and  good 
breeding."  He  puts  his  requisites  in  the  following  order  of 
importance : — i,  virtue ;  2,  wisdom ;  3,  manners;  4,  learning; 
and  so  '*  places  learning  last  and  least."  Here  he  shews 
himself  far  ahead  of  those  who  still  held  to  the  learned 
ideal ;  but  his  notions  of  development  were  cramped  by 
his  thinking  only  of  the  gentleman  and  what  was  requisite 
for  him. 

§  19.  n.  Was  Locke  a  utilitarian  in  education?  It  is 
the  fashion  (and  in  history  as  in  other  things  fashion  is  a 
powerful  force),  it  is  the  fashion  to  treat  of  Locke  as  a  great 
champion  of  utilitarianism.  We  might  expect  this  in  the 
ordinary  historians,  for  "  when  they  do  agree  their  unanimity 
is  "  not  perhaps  very  wonderful.  But  there  is  one  great 
English  authority  quite  uninfluenced  by  them  who  has  said 

advantageous  studies  for  persons  of  your  quality ;  the  other  are  fitter 
for  schoobnen  and  people  that  must  live  by  their  learning,  though  a 
little  insight  and  taste  of  them  will  be  no  burthen  or  inconvenience  to 
you,  especially  Natural  Philosophy."  Advice  to  a  young  Lo^d  written 
by  his  father,  1 691,  p.  29. 


LOCKE.  235 

Utilitarianism  defined. 

the  same  thing,  viz. — Cardinal  Newman.  The  Cardinal,  as 
the  champion  of  authority,  is  perhaps  prejudiced  against 
Locke,  who  holds  that  "  the  faculty  of  reasoning  seldom 
or' never  deceived  those  who  trusted  to  it."  Be  this  as  it 
nuy,  Newman  asserts  that  "the  tone  of  Locke's  remarks  is 
condemnatory  of  any  teaching  which  tends  to  the  general 
cultivation  of  the  mind."  {Idea  of  a  University.  Discourse 
vij.,  §  4  ;  see  also  §  6.)  A  very  interesting  point  for  us  to 
consider  is  then,  Is  this  reputation  of  Locke's  for  utilita- 
rianism well  deserved  ? 

§  20.  First  let  us  be  quite  certain  of  our  definition. 

Ill  learning  anything  there  are  two  points  to  be  considered  j 
I  St,  the  advantage  we  shall  find  from  knowing  that  subject 
or  having  that  skill,  and  2nd,  the  effect  which  the  study  of 
that  subject  or  practising  for  that  skill  will  have  on  the 
mind  or  the  body. 

These  two  points  are  in  themselves  distinct,  though  it  is 
open  to  anyone  to  maintain  that  they  need  not  be  con- 
sidered separately.  Nature  has  provided  that  the  bodies  of 
most  animals  should  get  the  exercise  best  for  them  in  pro- 
curing food.  So  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  has  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  it  would  be  contrary  to  "  the  economy  of 
nature  "  if  one  set  of  occupations  were  needed  as  gymnastics 
and  another  for  utility.  In  other  words  he  considers  that 
it  is  in  learning  the  most  useful  things  we  get  the  best 
training. 

The  utilitarian  view  of  instruction  is  that  we  should  teach 
things  useful  in  themselves  and  either  neglect  the  result  on 
the  mind  and  body  of  the  learner  or  assume  Mr.  Spencer's 
law  of  "  the  economy  of  nature." 

Again,  when  the  subjects  are  settled  the  utilitarian  thmks 
how  the  knowledge  or  skill  may  be  most  speedily  acquired, 


236  LOCKE. 

L.  not  utilitarian  in  education. 

and  not  how  this  method  or  that  method  of  acquisition  will 
affect  the  faculties. 

§  21.  This  being  utilitarianism  in  education  the  ques- 
tion is  how  far  was  Locke  the  utilitarian  he  is  generally 
considered  ? 

If  we  take  by  itself  what  he  says  under  the  head  of 
"  Learning  "  in  the  Thoughts  concerning  Education  no  doubt 
we  should  pronounce  him  a  utilitarian.  He  considers  each 
subject  of  instruction  and  pronounces  for  or  against  it 
according  as  it  seems  likely  or  unlikely  to  be  useful  to  a 
gentleman.  And  in  the  methods  he  suggests  he  simply 
points  out  the  quickest  route,  as  if  the  knowledge  were  the 
only  thing  to  be  thought  of.  Hence  his  utilitarian  reputa- 
tion. 

But  two  very  important  considerations  have  been  lost 
sight  of. 

I  St.  Learning  is  with  him  "the  last  and  least  part"  in 
education. 

2nd.  Intellectual  education  was  not  for  childhood  but 
for  the  age  when  we  can  teach  ourselves.  "When  a  man 
has  got  an  entrance  into  any  of  the  sciences,"  says  he,  "  it 
will  be  time  then  to  depend  on  himself  and  rely  upon  his 
own  understanding  and  exercise  his  own  faculties,  which  is 
the  only  way  to  improvement  and  mastery."  (L.  to  Peter- 
borough, quoted  in  Camb.  edition  of  Thoughts^  p.  229.) 
"  So,"  he  says,  "  the  business  of  education  is  not,  as  I  think, 
to  make  the  young  perfect  in  any  one  of  the  sciences  but  so 
to  open  and  dispose  their  minds  as  may  best  make  them 
capable  of  any  when  they  shall  apply  themselves  to  it." 
The  studies  he  proposes  in  the  Coiiduct  of  the  Understand- 
ing (which  is  his  treatise  on  intellectual  education)  have  for 
Iheir  object  "  an  increase  of  the  powers  and  activity  of  the 


LOCKE.  237 

Locke's  Pisgah  Vision. 

mind,  not  an  enlargement  of  its  possessions"  (C.  of  U. 
%  19,  adf.). 

Thus  strange  to  say  the  supposed  leader  of  the  Utilitarians 
has  actually  propounded  in  so  many  words  the  doctrine  ol 
their  opponents. 

§  22.  When  Locke  is  more  studied  it  will  be  found 
that  the  Thoughts  are  misleading  if  we  neglect  his  other 
works,  more  particularly  the  Conduct  of  the  Understanding. 

§  23.  Towards  the  end  of  his  days,  Locke  was  conscious 
of  gleams  of  the  "untravelled  world"  which  lay  before  the 
generations  to  come.  With  great  pathos  he  writes  to  a 
friend  :  "  When  I  consider  how  much  of  my  life  has  been 
trifled  away  in  beaten  tracks  where  I  vamped  on  with  others 
only  to  follow  those  who  went  before  me,  I  cannot  but 
think  I  have  just  as  much  reason  to  be  proud  as  if  I  had 
travelled  all  England  and,  if  you  will,  all  France  too,  only 
to  acquaint  myself  with  the  roads,  and  be  able  to  tell  how 
the  highways  lie  wherein  those  of  equipage,  and  even  the 
common  herd  too,  travel.  Now,  methinks — and  these  are 
often  old  men's  dreams — I  see  openings  to  truth  and  direct 
paths  leading  to  it,  wherein  a  little  application  and  industry 
would  settle  one's  mind  with  satisfaction  and  leave  no  dark- 
ness or  doubt.  But  this  is  the  end  of  my  day  when  my  sun 
is  setting :  and  though  the  prospect  it  has  given  me  be 
what  I  would  not  for  anything  be  without — there  is  so 
much  truth,  beauty,  and  consistency  in  it — yet  it  is  for  one 
of  your  age,  I  think  I  ought  to  say  for  yourself,  to  set 
about"  (L.  to  Bolde,  quoted  by  Fowler,  Locke,  p.  120).  But 
another  200  years  have  not  sufficed  to  put  us  in  possession 
of  the  Promised  Land  of  which  Locke  had  these  Pisgah 
visions.  We  still  "vamp  on,"  following  those  who  went 
t>cfore  us  and  getting  small  help  from  expounders  of  "  Edu- 
j8 


238  LOCKE. 

Science  for  education.    Names  of  books. 

cation  as  a  Science."  But  as  it  would  seem  the  days  of 
vamping  on  blindly  in  the  beaten  track  are  drawing  to  a 
close.  We  cannot  doubt  that  if  Locke  had  known  the 
wonderful  advance  which  various  sciences  have  made  sint;e 
his  day  he  would  have  seen  in  them  "  openings  to  truth  and 
direct  paths  leading  to  it "  for  many  purposes,  certainly  for 
education.  It  is  for  our  age  and  ages  to  come  to  set  about 
applying  our  scientific  knowledge  to  the  bringing  up  of 
children  .  and  thinkers  such  as  Froebel  will  shew  us  how. 


Locke's  Thoughts  concerning  Education  and  his  Conduct  of  the 
Understanding  should  be  in  the  hands  of  all  students  of  education  who 
know  the  English  language.  I  have  therefore  not  attempted  to  epitomise 
what  he  has  said,  but  have  endeavoured  to  get  at  the  main  thoughts 
which  are,  so  to  speak,  the  taproot  of  his  system.  Of  the  Thoughts 
there  is  an  edition  published  by  the  National  Society  and  another  by 
the  Pitt  Press,  Cambridge.  The  Cambridge  edition  gives  from  Fox- 
Bourne's  Life  Locke's  scheme  of  "Working  Schools''  and  from  Lord 
King's  the  essay  "  Of  Study."  Of  the  Conduct  there  is  an  edition  pub- 
lished by  the  Clarendon  Press.  "  F.B."  in  the  references  above  stands 
for  Fox-Bourne's  Life  of  Locke. 

In  the  above  essay  I  have  not  treated  of  Locke  as  a  method  izer  ;  but 
he  advocated  teaching  foreign  languages  without  grammar,  and  he 
published  * '  ^sop's  Fables  in  English  and  Latin,  interlineary.  For 
the  benefit  of  those,  who  not  having  a  master  would  learn  either  of 
these  Tongues."  When  I  edited  the  Thoughts  for  Pitt  Press  I  did  not 
know  of  this  book  or  I  should  have  mentioned  it. 


\ 


0 


XIV. 
JEAN-JACQUES    ROUSSEAU. 


(1712-1778). 

§  I.  The  great  men  whom  we  meet  with  in  the  history 
of  education  may  be  divided  into  two  classes,  thinkers  and 
doers.  There  would  seem  no  good  reason  why  the  thinker 
should  not  be  great  as  a  doer  or  the  doer  as  a  thinker ;  and 
yet  we  hardly  find  any  records  of  men  who  have  been 
successful  both  in  investigating  theory  and  directing  practice. 
History  tells  us  of  first-rate  practical  schoolmasters  like 
Sturm  and  the  Jesuits ;  but  they  did  not  think  out  their  own 
theory  of  their  task  :  they  accepted  the  current  theory  of 
their  time.  On  the  other  hand,  men  who  like  Montaigne 
and  Locke  rejected  the  current  theory  and  sought  to  es- 
tablish a  better  by  an  appeal  to  reason  were  not  practical 
schoolmasters.  Whenever  the  thinker  tries  to  turn  his 
thought  into  action  he  has  cause  to  be  disappointed  with 
the  result.  We  saw  this  in  the  disastrous  failure  of  Ratke  ; 
and  even  the  books  in  which  Comenius  tried  to  work  out 
his  principles,  the  Vestibulum,  Janua  and  the  rest,  with  the 
exception  of  the  Orbis  Fictus,  were  speedily  forgotten.  Tn 
the  world  of  education  as  elsewhere  it  takes  time  to  find 
for  great  thoughts  the  practice  which  gives  effect  to  them. 
The  course  of  great  thoughts  is  in  some  ways  like  the  course 
of  great  rivers.  Most  romantic  and  beautiful  near  their 
source,  they  are  not   most  useful.      They  must  leave  the 


240  ROUSSEAU. 


Middle  Age  system  fell  in  i8th  century. 

mountains  in  which  they  first  appeared,  and  must  flow  not 
in  cataracts  but  smoothly  along  the  plain  among  the  dwell- 
ings of  common  men  before  they  can  be  turned  to  account 
in  the  every-day  business  of  life, 

§  2.  The  eighteenth  century  was  soon  distinguished  by 
boundless  activity  of  thought ;  and  this  thought  was 
directed  mainly  to  a  great  work  of  destruction,  Euiope 
had  outgrown  the  ideas  of  the  Middle  Age,  and  the  frame- 
work of  Society,  which  the  Middle  Age  had  bequeathed,  had 
waxed  old  and  was  ready  to  vanish  as  soon  as  any  strong 
force  could  be  found  to  push  it  out  of  the  way.  As  Matthew 
Arnold  has  described  it — 

"  It's  frame  yet  stood  without  a  breach 
"When  blood  and  waiinth  were  fled ; 
"And  still  it  spake  it's  wonted  speech — 
"But  every  word  was  dead." 

Here  then  there  was  need  of  some  destructive  power 
that  should  remove  and  burn  up  much  that  had  become 
mere  obstacle  and  incumbrance.  This  power  was  found  in 
the  writings  which  appeared  in  France  about  the  middle  of 
the  century ;  and  among  the  authors  of  them  none  spoke 
with  more  effect  than  one  who  differed  from  all  the  rest,  a 
vagabond  without  family  ties  or  social  position  of  any  kind, 
with  no  literary  training,  with  little  knowledge  and  in  con- 
duct at  least,  with  no  morals.  The  writings  of  Rousseau 
and  the  results  produced  by  them  are  among  the  strangest 
things  in  history;  and  especially  in  matters  of  education  it 
is  more  than  doubtful  if  the  wise  man  of  the  world  Montaigne, 
the  Christian  philanthropist  Comenius,  or  that  "slave  of 
truth  and  reason  "  the  philosopher  Locke,  had  half  as  much 
mfluence  as  this  depraved  serving  man, 
§  3,  The  work  by  which  Rousseau  became  famous  was 


ROUSSEAU.  241 


Do  the  opposite  to  the  usual. 


a  prize  essay  in  which  he  maintained  that  civilization,  the 
art?  and  all  human  institutions  were  from  first  to  last  per- 
nicious in  their  effects,  and  that  no  happiness  was  possible 
for  the  human  race  without  giving  them  all  up  and  returning 
to  what  he  called  the  state  of  Nature.  He  glorified  the 
"  noble  savage."  If  man  had  brought  himself  to  a  state  of 
misery  bordering  on  despair  by  following  his  own  many 
inventions,  take  away  all  these  inventions  and  you  will  have 
man  in  his  proper  condition.  The  argument  seems  some- 
thing of  this  kind :  Man  was  once  happy :  Man  is  now 
miserable :  undo  everything  that  has  been  done  and  Man 
will  be  happy  again. 

§  4.  This  principle  of  a  so-called  "  natural "  state  exist- 
ing before  man's  many  inventions,  Rousseau  applied  boldly 
to  education,  and  he  deduced  this  general  rule :  "  Do'  pre- 
cisely the  opposite  to  what  is  usually  done,  and  you  will 
have  hit  on  the  right  plan."  Not  reform  but  revolution  was 
his  advice.  He  took  the  ordinary  school  teaching  and  held 
it  up  to  ridicule,  and  certainly  he  did  prove  its  absurdity. 
And  a  most  valuable  service  he  thus  rendered  to  teachers. 
Every  employment  while  it  makes  us  see  some  things 
clearly,  also  provides  us  with  blinkers,  so  to  speak,  which 
prevent  our  seeing  other  things  at  all.  The  school  teacher's 
blinkers  often  prevent  his  seeing  much  that  is  plain  enough 
to  other  people ;  and  when  a  writer  like  Rousseau  takes  oflf 
our  blinkers  for  us  and  makes  us  look  about  us,  he  does 
us  a  great  deal  of  good.  But  we  need  more  than  this  :  if 
we  have  children  entrusted  to  us  we  must  do  something 
with  them,  and  Rousseau's  rule  of  doing  the  opposite  to 
what  is  usual  will  not  be  found  universally  applicable.  So 
we  consult  Rousseau  again,  and  what  is  his  advice  ? 

§  5.  Rousseau    would    bring    everything   back    to    the 


242  ROUSSEAU. 


Family  life.    No  education  before  reason. 

"natural "  state,  and  unfortunately  he  never  pauses  to  settle 
whether  he  means  by  this  a  state  of  ideal  perfection,  or  of 
simply  savagery.  The  savage,  he  says,  gets  his  education 
without  any  one's  troubling  about  it,  and  so  he  infers  that 
all  the  trouble  taken  by  the  civilized  is  worse  than  thrown 
away.  (Girardin's  Rousseau,  ij.,  85.)  But  he  does  not  fall 
back  on  laisser  faire.  He  urges  on  parents  the  duty  of 
themselves  attending  to  the  bringing  up  of  their  children. 
"Point  de  m^re,  point  d'enfant — no  mother,  no  child," 
says  he ;  and  he  would  have  the  father  see  to  the  training 
of  the  child  whom  the  mother  has  suckled. 

§  6.  Rousseau's  picture  of  family  life  is  given  us  where 
few  Englishmen  are  hkely  to  find  it,  enveloped  in  the  Nou- 
velle  Heldise.  Here  we  read  how  Julie  always  has  her 
children  with  her,  and  while  seeming  to  let  them  do  as  they 
like,  conceals  with  the  air  of  apparent  carelessness  the 
most  vigilant  observation.  Possessed  by  the  notion  that 
there  can  be  no  intellectual  education  before  the  age  of 
reason,  she  proclaims :  "  La  fonction  dont  je  suis  chargde 
n'est  pas  d'^lever  mes  fils,  mais  de  les  preparer  pour  etre 
^lev^s :  My  business  is  not  to  educate  my  sons,  but  to 
prepare  them  for  being  educated."  {N.  Belotse,  5th  P., 
Lett.  3.)* 

§  7.  There  is  much  that  is  very  pleasing  in  this  picture 
of  ideal  family  life ;  but  when  Rousseau  comes  formally  to 
propound  his  ideas  on  education,  he  gives  up  family  life  to 
attain  greater  simplicity.  "  Je  m'en  tiens  k  ce  qui  est  plus 
simple,"  says  he:  "What  I  stick  to  is  the  more  simple:' 
He  tries  to  state  everything  in  its  lowest  terms,  so  to  speak  ; 
and  this  method  is  excellent  so  long  as  he  puts  on  one  side 


*  "11  n'y  a   point  avant  la    raison  de  veritable    education    pom 
rhomme."    {N.  H.,  Sth  P.,  Lett.  3.     Conf.  supra,  p.  227.) 


ROUSSEAU.  243 


R.    "neglects"  essentials.    Lose  time. 

only  what  is  accidental,  and  retains  all  the  essentials  of  the 
problem.  But  his  rage  for  simplicity  sometimes  earned 
him  beyond  this.  There  is  an  old  Cambridge  story  of  a 
problem  introducing  an  elephant  "whose  weight  may  be 
neglected."  This  is  after  the  manner  of  Rousseau.  In  the 
bringing  up  of  the  model  child,  he  "  neglects "  parents, 
bj others  and  sisters,  young  companions;  and  though  he 
says  that  the  needful  qualities  of  a  master  may  be  expected 
only  in  "  un  homme  de  g^nie,"  he  hands  over  6mile  to  a 
governor  to  live  an  isolated  life  in  the  country. 

§  8.  This  governor  is  to  devote  himself,  for  some  years, 
entirely  to  imparting  to  his  pupil  these  difficult  arts — the 
art  of  being  ignorant  and  of  losing  time.  Till  he  is  twelve 
years  old,  Emile  is  to  have  no  direct  instruction  whatever. 
"  At  that  age  he  shall  not  know  what  a  book  is,"  says  Rous- 
seau ;  though  elsewhere  we  are  told  that  he  will  learn  to 
read  of  his  own  accord  by  the  time  he  is  ten,  if  no 
attempt  is  made  to  teach  him.  He  is  to  be  under  no  re- 
straint, and  is  to  do  nothing  but  what  he  sees  to  be  useful. 

§  9.  Freedom  from  restraint  is,  however,  to  be  apparent, 
not  real.  As  in  ordinary  education  the  child  employs  all 
its  faculties  in  duping  the  master,  so  in  education  "accord- 
ing to  Nature  "  the  master  is  to  devote  himself  to  duping 
the  child.  "  Let  him  always  be  his  own  master  in  appear- 
ance, and  do  you  take  care  to  be  so  in  reality.  There  is  no 
subjection  so  complete  as  that  which  preserves  the  appear- 
ance of  liberty;  it  is  by  this  means  even  the  will  is  led 
captive." 

§  10.  "The  most  critical  interval  of  human  nature  is 
that  between  the  hour  of  our  birth  and  twelve  years  of  age. 
This  is  the  time  wherein  vice  and  error  take  root  without 
our  being  possessed  of  any  instrument  to  destroy  them." 


244  ROUSSEAU. 


Early  education  negative. 


{Am.  ij.,  79.)  Throughout  this  season,  the  governor  is  to  be 
at  work  training  the  pupil  in  the  art  of  being  ignorant  and 
losing  time.  "  The  first  education  should  be  purely  nega- 
tive. It  consists  by  no  means  in  teaching  virtue  or  truth, 
but  in  securing  the  heart  from  vice  and  the  intellect  fi-om 
error.  If  you  could  do  nothing  and  let  nothing  be  done, 
if  you  could  bring  on  your  pupil  healthy  and  strong  to  the 
age  of  12  without  his  being  able  to  tell  his  right  hand 
from  his  left,  from  your  very  first  lessons  the  eyes  of  his 
understanding  would  open  to  reason.  Being  without  pre- 
judices and  without  habits  he  would  have  nothing  in  him 
to  thwart  the  effect  of  your  care ;  and  by  beginning  with 
doing  nothing  you  would  have  made  an  educational  pro- 
digy."* 

"  Exercise  his  body,  his  organs,  his  senses,  his  powers ; 
but  keep  his  mind  passive  as  long  as  possible.  Mistrust 
all  his  sentiments  formed  before  the  judgment  which  deter- 
mines their  value.  Restrain,  avoid  all  foreign  impressions, 
and  to  prevent  the  birth  of  evil  be  in  no  hurry  to  cause 
good ;  for  good  is  good  only  in  the  light  of  reason.  Look 
on  all  delays  as  so  many  advantages  :  it  is  a  great  gain  to 
advance  towards  the  goal  without  loss  :  let  childhood  ripen 
in  children.     In  short,  whatever  lesson  they  may  need,  be 

*  "  La  premiere  education  doit  done  8tre  purement  negative.  Elle 
consiste,  noi ,  point  a  enseigner  la  vertu  ni  la  verite,  mais  k  garantir  le  coeur 
da  vice  et  I'esprit  de  I'erreur.  Si  vous  pouviez  ne  rien  faire  et  ne  rien 
laisser  faire  ;  si  vous  pouviez  amener  votre  eleve  sain  et  robuste  k  I'age 
de  douze  ans,  sans  qu'il  sut  distinguer  sa  main  droite  de  sa  main  gauche, 
des  vos  premieres  le9ons  les  yeux  de  son  entendement  s'ouvriraient  k  la 
raison ;  sans  prejuge>,  sans  habitudes,  11  n'aurait  rien  en  lui  qui  pflt 
contrarier  I'effet  de  vos  soins.  BientSt  11  deviendrait  entre  vos  mains  le 
plus  sage  des  hommes ;  et,  en  commen9ant  par  ne  rien  faire,  voiit 
auriez  fait  un  prodige  d'6ducation."    £m.  ij.,  80. 


ROUSSEAU.  245 


Childhood  the  sleep  of  reason. 


sure  not  to  give  it  them  to-day  if  you  can  safely  put  it  ofi 
till  to-morrow."* 

*'  Do  not,  then,  alarm  yourself  much  about  this  apparent 
idleness.  What  would  you  say  of  the  man,  who,  in  order 
to  make  the  most  of  life,  should  determine  never  to  go  to 
sleep  ?  You  would  say,  The  man  is  mad  :  he  is  not  enjoying 
the  time ;  he  is  depriving  himself  of  it :  to  avoid  sleep  he  is 
hurrying  towards  death.  Consider,  then,  that  it  is  the 
same  here,  and  that  childhood  is  the  sleep  of  reason."f 

§  II.  We  have  now  reached  the  climax  (or  shall 
we  say  the  nadir  ?)  in  negation.  Rousseau  has  given  the 
coup  de  grace  to  the  ideal  of  the  Renascence.  Comenius  was 
the  first  to  take  a  comprehensive  view  of  the  educator's  task 
and  to  connect  it  with  man's  nature  and  destiny ;  but  he 
could  not  get  clear  from  an  over-estimate  of  the  importance 
of  knowledge.  According  to  his  ideal,  man  should  know  all 
things ;  so  in  practice  he  thought  too  much  of  imparting 
knowledge.     Then  came  Locke  and  treated  the  imparting 

*  "  Exercez  son  corps,  ses  organes,  ses  sens,  ses  forces,  mais  tenez 
?on  ame  oisive  aussi  longiemps  qu'il  se  pourra.  Redouteztous  les  sent- 
ments  anterieurs  au  jugement  qui  les  apprecie.  Retenez,  arretez  les 
impressions  etrangeres  :  et,  pour  empecher  le  mal  de  naitre,  ne  vous 
pressez  point  de  faire  le  bien  ;  car  il  n'est  jamais  tel  que  quand  laraison 
I'eclaire.  Regardez  tous  les  delais  comme  des  avantages  :  c'est  gagner 
beaucoup  que  d'avancer  vers  le  terme  sans  rien  perdre ;  laissez  murir 
I'enfance  dans  les  enfants.  Enfin  quelque  le9on  leur  devient-elle  neces- 
saire,  gardez-vous  de  la  donner  aujourd'hui,  si  vous  pouvez  differer 
jusqu'i  demain  sans  danger."     J^w.  ij.,  80. 

t  "  Effrayez-vous  done  peu  de  cette  oisivete  pretendue.  Que  diiiez- 
vous  d'un  homme  qui,  pour  mettre  toute  la  vie  k  profit,  ne  voudrait 
jamais  dormir?  Vous  diriez  :  Cet  homme  est  insense  ;  il  nejouitpas 
du  temps,  il  se  I'ote  ;  pour  fuir  le  sommeil  il  court  i  la  mart.  Songez 
done  que  c'est  ici  la  meme  chose,  et  que  I'enfance  est  le  som:neil  de  la 
raison."    6/n.  ij.,  99. 


246  ROUSSEAU. 


Start  from  study  of  the  child. 


of  knowledge  as  of  trifling  importance  when  compared  with 
the  formation  of  character ;  but  he  too  in  practice  hardly 
went  so  far  as  this  principle  might  have  led  him.  He  was 
much  under  the  influence  of  social  distinctions,  and  could 
not  help  thinking  of  what  it  was  necessary  for  a  gentleman 
to  know.  So  that  Rousseau  was  the  very  first  to  shake 
himself  entirely  free  from  the  notion  which  the  Renascence 
had  handed  down  that  man  was  mainly  a  learning  animal. 
Rousseau  has  the  courage  to  deny  this  in  the  most 
emphatic  manner  possible,  and  to  say  :  "  For  the  first  1 2 
years  the  educator  must  teach  the  child  nothing^ 

§  12.  In  this  reaction  against  the  Renascence  Rousseau 
puts  the  truth  in  the  form  of  such  a  violent  paradox  that  we 
start  back  in  terror.  But  it  was  perhaps  necessary  thus  to 
sweep  away  the  ordinary  schoolroom  rubbish  before  the  true 
nature  of  the  educator's  task  could  be  fairly  considered. 
The  rubbish  having  been  cleared  away  what  was  to  take 
its  place  ?  No  longer  having  his  mind  engrossed  by  the 
knowledge  he  wished  to  communicate,  the  educator  had  now 
an  eye  for  something  else  not  less  worthy  of  his  attention, 
viz.,  the  child  itself  Rousseau  was  the  first  to  base  educa- 
tion entirely  on  a  study  of  the  child  to  be  educated  ;  and  by 
doing  this  he  became,  as  I  believe,  one  of  the  greatest  of 
educational  Reformers. 

§  13.  It  was,  however,  purely  as  a  thinker,  or  rather  as  a 
voi':e  giving  expression  to  the  general  discontent  that 
Rousseau  became  such  a  tremendous  force  in  Europe.  He 
has  indeed  often  been  called  the  father  of  the  first  French 
Revolution  which  he  did  not  live  to  see.  But,  as  Macaulay 
has  well  said,  a  good  deal  besides  eloquent  writing  is  needed 
to  cause  such  a  convulsion  ;  and  we  can  no  more  attribute 
the  French  Revolution  to  the  writings  of  Rousseau  than  we 


ROUSSEAU.  247 


R.'s  paradoxes  un-English. 


can  attribute  the  shock  of  an  explosion  of  gunpowder  to  the 
Uicifer  match  without  which  it  might  never  have  happened. 
{v.  Macaulay's  Barrtre).  Rousseau  did  in  the  world  ol 
ideas  what  the  French  Revolutionists  afterwards  did  in  the 
world  of  politics ;  he  made  a  clean  sweep  and  endeavoured 
to  start  afresh. 

§  14.  I  have  already  said  that  as  regards  education  I 
think  his  labours  in  destruction  were  of  very  great  value. 
But  what  shall  we  say  of  his  efforts  at  construction  ?  There 
would  not  be  the  least  difficulty  in  showing  that  most  of 
his  proposals  are  impracticable.  It  is  no  more  "  natural  " 
to  treat  as  a  typical  case  a  child  brought  up  in  solitude  than 
it  would  be  to  write  a  treatise  on  the  rearing  of  a  bee  cut 
off  from  the  hive.*  Rousseau  requires  impossibiHties,  e.g.^ 
he  postulates  that  the  child  is  never  to  be  brought  into 
contact  with  anyone  who  might  set  a  bad  example. 
Modern  science  has  shown  us  that  the  young  are  liable  to  take 
diseases  from  impurities  in  the  air  they  breathe  :  but  as 
yet  no  one  has  proposed  that  all  children  should  be  kept 
at  an  elevation  of  5,000  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea. 
Yet  the  advice  would  be  about  as  practicable  as  the  advice 
of  Rousseau.  A  meihod  which  always  starts  with  paradox 
and  not  infrequently  ends  with  platitude  might  seem  to 
have  httle  in  its  favour ;  and  Rousseau  has  had  far  less 
influence  since  (in  the  words  of  Herman  Merivale)  "he 
was  dethroned  with  the  fall  of  his  extravagant  child,  the 
[First  J  Republic."     No  doubt  the  great  exponent  of  English 

*  "II  n'y  a  pas  de  philosophic  plus superficielle  que  celle  qui,  prenant 
I'homme  comme  un  etre  egoiste  et  viager,  pretend  I'expliquer  et  lui 
tracer  ses  devoirs  en  dehors  de  la  societe  dont  il  est  ane  partie.  Autant 
vaut  considerer  I'abeille  abstraction  faite  de  la  ruche,  et  dire  qu'4  elle 
fceule  I'abeille  construit  son  alveole."     Renan,  La  Reforme,  312. 


248  ROUSSEAU. 


Man  the  corrupter.    The  three  educations. 

opinion  was  right  in  calling  Rousseau  *'  the  most  un-English 
stranger  who  ever  landed  on  our  shores"  {Times,  29  Aug,, 
1873);  and  the  torch  of  his  eloquence  will  never  cause  a 
conflagration,  still  less  an  explosion,  here.  His  disregard 
for  "appearances" — or  rather  his  evident  purpose  of 
making  an  impression  by  defying  "  appearances "  and 
saying  just  the  opposite  of  what  is  expected,  is  simply 
distressing  to  us.  But  there  is  no  denying  Rousseau's 
genius.  His  was  one  of  the  original  voices  that  go  on 
sounding  and  awakening  echoes  in  all  lands.  Willingly  or 
unwillingly,  at  first  hand  or  from  imperfect  echoes,  everyone 
who  studies  education  must  study  Rousseau. 

§  15.  As  specimens  of  Rousseau's  teaching  I  will  give 
a  few  characteristic  passages  from  the  fimile. 

"  Everything  is  good  as  it  leaves  the  hands  of  the  Creator  : 
everything  degenerates  in  the  hands  of  man."*  These  are 
the  first  words  of  the  "  £mile,"  and  the  key-note  of  Rous- 
seau's philosophy. 

§  16.  "  We  are  born  weak,  we  have  need  of  strength  ; 
we  are  bom  destitute  of  everything,  we  have  need  of  assist- 
ance ;  we  are  born  stupid,  we  have  need  of  understanding. 
All  that  we  have  not  at  our  birih,  and  which  we  require 
when  grown  up,  is  bestowed  on  us  by  education.  This 
education  we  receive  from  nature,  from  men,  or  from 
things.  The  internal  development  of  our  organs  and 
faculties  is  the  education  of  nature :  the  use  we  are  taught 
to  make  of  that  development  is  the  education  given  us  by 
men  ;  and  in  the  acquisitions  made  by  our  own  experience 
on  the  objects  that  surround   us,   consists   our   education 

*  "  Tout  est  bien,  sortant  des  mains  de  I'Auteur  des  choses ;  tout 
deg^n^re  entre  les  mains  de  rhomme." 


ROUSSEAU.  249 


The  aim,  living  thoroughly. 


from  things."*  "Since  the  concurrence  of  these  three 
kinds  of  education  is  necessary  to  their  perfection,  it  is  by 
that  one  which  is  entirely  independent  of  us,  we  must 
regulate  the  two  others."t 

§  1 7.  Now  "  to  live  is  not  merely  to  breathe ;  it  is  to 
act,  it  is  to  make  use  of  our  organs,  our  senses,  our  faculties, 
and  of  all  those  parts  of  ourselves  which  give  us  the  feeling 
of  our  existence.  The  man  who  has  lived  most,  is  not  he 
who  has  counted  tlie  greatest  number  of  years,  but  he  who 
has  most  thoroughly  felt  life."J 

§  18.  The  aim  of  education,  then,  must  be  complete 
living. 

But  ordinary  education,  instead  of  seeking  to  develop 
the  life  of  the  child,  sacrifices  childhood  to  the  acquirement 
of  knowledge,  or  rather  the  semblance  of  knowledge,  which 
it  is  thought  will  prove  useful  to  the  youth  or  the  man. 

"  Nous  naissons  faibles,  nous  avons  besoin  de  forces  ;  nous  naisscns 
depourvus  de  tout,  nous  avons  besoin  d'assistance  ;  nous  naissons  stu- 
pides,  nous  avons  besoin  de  jugement.  Tout  ce  que  nousn'avons  pas  k 
notre  naissance,  et  dont  nous  avons  besoin  etant  grands,  nous  est  donne 
par  I'education.  Cette  education  nous  vient  ou  de  la  nature,  ou  des 
hommes,  ou  des  choses.  Le  developpement  interne  de  nos  facultes  et  de 
nos  organes  est  I'education  de  la  nature  ;  I'usage  qu'on  nous  apprend  k 
faire  de  ce  developpement  est  I'education  des  hommes  ;  et  I'acquis  de 
notre  propre  experience  sur  les  objets  qui  nous  affectent  est  reducation 
des  choses."     £m.  j.,  6. 

t  "  Puisque  le  concours  des  trois  educations  est  necessaire  k  leur  per- 
fection, c'est  sur  celle  a  laquelle  nous  ne  pouvous  rien  qu'ilfaut  dirigei 
les  deux  autres."     £m.  j.,  7. 

+  "  Vivre  ce  n'est  pas  respirer,  c'est  agir ;  c'est  faire  usage  de  nos  or- 
ganes, de  nos  sens,  de  nos  facultes,  de  toutes  les  parties  de  nous-memes 
qui  nous  donnent  le  sentiment  de  notre  existence.  L'homme  qui  a  le 
plus  vecu  n'est  pas  celui  qui  a  compte  le  plus  d'ann^es,  mais  celui  qui  a 
le  plus  senti  la  vie."     ^m.  j.,  13. 


250  ROUSSEAU. 


Children  not  small  men. 


Rousseau's  great  merit  lies  in  his  having  exposed  this 
fundamental  error.  He  says,  very  truly,  "  We  do  not  under- 
stand childhood,  and  pursuing  false  ideas  of  it  our  eveiy 
itep  takes  us  further  astray.  The  wisest  among  us  fix  upon 
what  it  concerns  men  to  know  without  ever  considering 
what  children  are  capable  of  learning.  They  always  expect 
to  find  the  man  in  the  child  without  thinking  of  what  the 
child  is  before  it  is  a  man.  And  this  is  the  study  to  which 
I  have  especially  devoted  myself,  in  order  that  should  my 
entire  method  be  false  and  visionary,  my  observations  might 
always  turn  to  account.  I  may  not  have  seen  aright  what 
ought  to  be  done  :  but  I  believe  I  have  seen  aright  the 
subject  on  which  we  have  to  act.  Begin  then  by  studying 
your  pupils  better,  for  most  certainly  you  do  not  under- 
stand them."*  "Nature  wills  that  children  should  be 
children  before  they  are  men.  If  we  seek  to  pervert  this 
order  we  shall  produce  forward  fruits  without  ripeness  or 
flavour,  and  tho'  not  ripe,  soon  rotten :  we  shall  have  young 
savans  and  old  children.  Childhood  has  ways  of  seeing, 
thinking,  feeling  peculiar  to  itself;  nothing  is  more  absurd 
than  to  wish  to  substitute  ours  in  theii    place."t      "We 

*  "  On  ne  connait  point  I'enfance  :  sur  les  fausses  idees  qu'on  en  a,  plus 
on  va,  plus  on  s'egare.  Les  plus  sages  s'attachent  i  ce  qu'il  importe  aux 
honimes  de  savoir,  sans  considerer  ce  que  les  enfants  sont  en  etat  d'ap- 
prendre.  lis  cherchent  toujours  I'homme  dans  I'enfant,  sans  penser  k  ce 
qu'il  est  avant  que  d'etre  homme.  Voilk  I'etude  k  laquelle  je  me  suis  le 
plus  applique,  afin  que,  quand  toute  ma  methode  serait  chimerique  el 
fausse,  on  put  toujours  profiler  de  mes  observations.  Je  puis  avoir 
tr^s-mal  vu  ce  qu'il  faut  faire  ;  mais  je  crois  avoir  bien  vu  le  sujet  sur 
lequel  on  doit  operer.  Commencez  done  par  mieux  etudier  vos  eleves  ; 
car  tres-assurement  vous  ne  les  connaissez  point." 

t  "La  nature  veut  que  les  enfants  soient  enfants  avant  que  d'etre 
bommes.     Si  nous  voulons  pervertir  cet  ordre,  nous  produirons  des  fniita 


ROUSSEAU.  251 


Schoolmasters'  contempt  for  childhood. 

never  knoM  how  to  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  children ; 
we  do  not  enter  into  their  ideas,  we  attribute  to  them  our 
own ;  and  following  always  our  own  train  of  thought,  even 
with  syllogisms  we  manage  to  fill  their  heads  with  nothing 
but  extravagance  and  error."*  *'  I  wish  some  discreet 
person  would  give  us  a  treatise  on  the  art  of  observing 
children — an  art  which  would  be  of  immense  value  to  us, 
but  of  which  fathers  and  schoolmasters  have  not  as  yet 
learnt  the  very  first  rudiments."t 

§  19.  In  these  passages,  Rousseau  strikes  the  key-note 
of  true  edifCation.  The  first  thing  necessary  for  us  is  to  see 
aright  the  subject  on  which  we  have  to  act.  Unfortunately, 
however,  this  subject  has  often  been  the  subject  most 
neglected  in  the  schoolroom.  Children  have  been  treated 
as  if  they  were  made  for  their  school  books,  not  their  school 
books  for  them.  As  education  has  been  thought  of  as 
learning,  childhood  has  been  treated  as  unimportant,  a 
necessary  stage  in  existence  no  doubt,  but  far  more  trouble- 
some  and   hardly  more   interesting  than  the  state  of  the 

precoces  qui  n'auront  ni  maturite  ni  saveur,  et  ne  tarderont  pas  k  se  cor- 
rompre  :  nous  aurons  de  jeunes  docteurs  et  de  vieux  enfants.  L'enfance 
a  des  manieres  de  voir,  de  penser,  de  sentir,  qui  lui  sont  propres  ;  rien 
n'est  raoins  sense  que  d'y  vouloir  substituer  les  notres."  lEm.  ij.,  75  ; 
also  m  N.  H.,  p.  478. 

*  "  Nous  ne  savons  jamais  nous  mettre  Ji  la  place  des  enfants  ;  nous 
n'entrons  pas  dans  leurs  idees,  nous  leur  pretons  les  notres ;  et,  suivant 
toujours  nos  propres  raisonnements,  avec  des  chaines  de  verites  nous 
n'entassons  qu'extravagances  et  qu'erreurs  dans  leur  tete."    Mm.  iij., 

185. 

t  "Je  voudrais  qu'un  homme  judicieux  nous  donnat  un  traite  de 
I'art  d'observer  les  enfants.  Cet  art  serait  tr^s-important  h.  connaitre : 
les  peres  et  les  maitres  n'en  ont  pas  encore  les  elements."  Mm.  iij., 
224. 


252  ROUSSEAU. 


Schoolroom  rubbish. 


chrysalis.  If  some  forms  of  words,  tables,  declensions, 
county  towns,  and  the  like  can  be  drummed  into  children, 
this  is,  say  educators  of  the  old  school,  a  clear  gain.  For 
the  rest  nothing  can  be  done  with  them  except  teaching 
them  to  read,  write,  and  say  the  multiplication  table. 

But  since  the  pubHcation  of  the  Emile,  there  has  been  in 
the  world  a  very  different  view  of  education.  According  to 
this  view,  the  importance  of  childhood  is  not  to  be  measured 
by  the  amount  of  our  knowledge,  or  even  the  number  of  our 
words,  we  can  force  it  to  remember.  According  to  this 
view,  in  dealing  with  children  we  must  not  think  of  our 
knowledge  or  of  our  notions  at  all.  We  must  think  not  of 
our  own  minds,  but  of  the  minds  of  the  little  ones.* 

§  20.  The  absurd  results  in  which  the  opposite  course 
has  ended,  Rousseau  exposes  with  great  severity.  "  All  the 
studies  demanded  from  the  poor  unfortunates  lead  to  such 
things  as  are  entirely  beyond  the  range  of  their  ideas,  so  you 
may  judge  what  amount  of  attention  they  can  give  to  them. 
Schoolmasters  who  make  a  great  display  of  the  instruction 
they  give  their  pupils  are  paid  to  differ  from  me ;  but  we 
see  from  what  they  do  that  they  are  entirely  of  my  opinion. 
For  what  do  they  really  teach  ?  Words,  words,  for  ever 
words.  Among  the  various  knowledges  which  they  boast 
of  giving,  they  are  careful  not  to  include  such  as  would  be 
of  use  ;  because  these  would  involve  a  knowledge  of  things, 
and  there  they  would  be  sure  to  fail;  but  they  choose 
subjects  that  seem  to  be  known  when  the  terms  are  known 


•  Rousseau  says  :  "  Full  of  what  is  going  on  in  your  own  head,  you 
do  not  see  the  effect  you  produce  in  their  head  :  Pleins  de  ce  qui  se 
passe  dans  votre  tete  vous  ne  voyez  pas  I'efFet  que  vous  produisez  dam 
la  leur."     (^w.  lib.  ij.,  83.) 


ROUSSEAU.  253 


Ideas  before  symbols. 


such  as  heraldry,  geography,  chronology,  languages  and  the 
like;  all  of  them  studies  so  foreign  to  a  man,  and  still  more 
lo  a  child,  that  it  is  a  great  chance  if  anything  of  the  whole 
lot  ever  proves  useful  to  him  on  a  single  occasion  in  his 
whole  life."*  "Whatever  the  study  may  be,  without  the 
idea  of  the  things  represented  the  signs  representing  them 
go  for  nothing.  And  yet  the  child  is  always  kept  to  these 
signs  without  our  being  able  to  make  him  comprehend  any 
of  the  things  they  represent. "f  What  does  a  child  under- 
stand by  "the  globe"?  An  old  geography  book  says 
candidly,  that  it  is  a  round  thing  made  of  plaster ;  and  this 
is  the  only  notion  children  have  of  it.  What  a  fearful  waste, 
and  worse  than  waste,  it  is  to  make  them  learn  the  signs 
without  the  things,  when  if  they  ever  learn  the  things,  they 
must  at  the  same  time  acquire  the  signs !  (Conf  Ruskin 
suj>ra^.  i^g,  nofe.)     "No!  if  Nature  gives  to  the  child's 

*  "  Or,  toutes  les  Etudes  forcees  de  ces  pauvres  infortunes  tendent  k 
ces  objets  entierement  etrangers  a.  leurs  esprits.  Qu'on  juge  de  I'atten- 
tion  qu'ils  y  peuvent  donner.  Les  pedagogues  qui  nous  etalent  en 
grand  appareil  les  instructions  qu'ils  donnent  k  leurs  disciples  sent 
pay^s  pour  tenir  un  autre  langage  :  cependant  on  voit,  par  leur  propre 
conduite,  qu'ils  pensent  exactement  comme  moi.  Car  que  leur 
apprennent-ils  enfin  ?  Des  mots,  encore  des  mots,  et  toujours  des  mots. 
Parmi  les  diverses  sciences  qu'ils  se  vantent  de  leur  enseigner,  ils  se 
gardent  bien  de  choisir  celles  qui  leur  seraient  veritablement  utiles, 
parce  que  ce  seraient  des  sciences  de  choses,  et  qu'ils  n'y  reussiraient 
pas  ;  mais  celles  qu'on  paralt  savoir  quand  on  en  sait  les  termes,  le 
blason,  la  geographic,  la  chronologic,  les  langues,  etc, ;  toutes  etudes  si 
loin  de  I'homme,  et  surtout  de  I'enfant,  que  c'est  une  merveille  si  rien 
de  tout  cela  lui  peut  etre  utile  une  seule  fois  en  sa  vie."     £m.  ij.,  100. 

T  "  En  quelque  etude  que  ce  puisse  etre,  sans  I'idee  des  choses  repre- 
sentees, les  signes  representants  ne  sont  rien.     On  borne  pourtant  tou- 
jours I'enfant  k  ces  signes,  sans  jamais  pouvoir  lui  faire  comprendre 
auraine  des  choses  qu'ils  representent."    ^m.  ij.,  102. 
19 


254  ROUSSEAU 


Right  ideas  for  children. 


brain  this  pliability  which  makes  it  capable  of  receiving 
impressions  of  every  kind,  this  is  not  that  we  may  engrave 
on  it  the  names  of  kings,  dates,  the  technical  words  of 
heraldry,  of  astronomy,  of  geography,  and  all  those  words 
meaningless  at  his  age  and  useless  at  any  age,  with  which 
we  oppress  his  sad  and  sterile  childhood ;  but  that  all  the 
ideas  which  he  can  conceive  and  which  are  useful  to  him, 
all  those  which  relate  to  his  happiness  and  will  one  day 
make  his  duty  plain  to  him,  may  trace  themselves  there  in 
characters  never  to  be  effaced,  and  may  assist  him  in 
conducting  himself  through  life  in  a  manner  appropriate  to 
his  nature  and  his  faculties."* 

•  "  Non,  si  la  nature  donne  au  cerveau  d'un  enfant  cette  souplesse  qui 
le  rend  propre  k  recevoir  toutes  sortes  d'impressions,  ce  n'est  pas  pour 
qu'on  y  grave  des  noms  de  rois,  des  dates,  des  termes  de  blason,  de 
sphere,  de  geographie,  et  tous  ces  mots  sans  aucun  sens  pour  son  &ge  et 
sans  aucune  utilite  pour  quelque  age  que  ce  soil,  dont  on  accable  sa 
triste  et  sterile  enfance  ;  mais  c'est  pour  que  toutes  les  id^es  qu'il  peut 
concevoir  et  qui  lui  sont  utiles,  toutes  celles  qui  se  rapportent  k  son 
honheur  et  doivent  I'eclairer  un  jour  sur  ses  devoirs,  s'y  tracent  de  bonne 
heure  en  caracteres  ineffa9ables,  et  lui  servent  k  se  conduire  pendant  sa 
vie  d'une  maniere  convenable  k  son  Stre  et  k  ses  facultes."  Mm.  ij. ,  105 ; 
also^V.  H.,  P.  v.,  L.  3. 

Sans  ^tudier  dans  les  livres,  I'espece  de  niemoire  que  peut  avoir  un 
enfant  ne  reste  pas  pour  cela  oisive  ;  tout  ce  qu'il  voit,  tout  ce  qu'il  en- 
tend  le  frappe,  et  il  s'en  souvient ;  il  tient  registre  en  lui-meme  des 
actions,  des  discours  des  hommes ;  et  tout  ce  qui  I'environne  est  le  livre 
dans  lequel,  sans  y  songer,  il  enrichit  continuellement  sa  memoire,  ea 
attendant  que  son  jugement  puisse  en  profiter.  C'est  dans  le  choix  de 
ces  objets,  c'est  dans  le  soin  de  lui  presenter  sans  cesse  ceux  qu'il  peut 
ccnnaltre,  et  de  lui  cacher  ceux  qu'il  doit  ignorer,  que  consiste  le  veri- 
table an  de  cultiver  en  lui  cette  premiere  faculty ;  et  c'est  par  la  qu'il  faut 
t&cher  de  lui  former  un  magasin  de  connaissances  qui  servent  a  son 
Education  durant  sa  jeunesse,  et  i  sa  conduite  dans  tous  les  temps. 
Cette  methode,  il  est  vrai,  ne  forme  point  de  petits  prodiges  et  ne  fail 


ROUSSEAU.  255 


Cliild-gardening.    Child's  activity. 

§  21.  With  Rousseau,  as  afterwards  with  Froebel, 
education  was  a  kind  of  "child-gardening."  "Plants  are 
developed  by  cultivation,"  says  he,  "  men  by  education  : 
Dn  fagonne  Ics  plantes  par  la  culture,  et  les  hommes  par 
1  Education  "  {Em.  j.,  6).  The  governor,  who  is  the  child- 
gardener,  is  to  aim  at  three  things  :  first,  he  is  to  shield  the 
child  from  all  corrupting  influences ;  second,  he  is  to  devote 
himself  to  developing  in  the  child  a  healthy  and  strong 
body  in  which  the  senses  are  to  be  rendered  acute  by 
exercise  ;  third,  he  is,  by  practice  not  precept,  to  cultivate 
the  child's  sense  of  duty. 

§  22.  In  his  study  of  children  Rousseau  fixed  on  their 
never-resting  activity.  "The  failing  energy  concentrates  itself 
in  the  heart  of  the  old  man;  in  the  heart  of  the  child  energy  is 
overflowing  and  spreads  outwards ;  he  feels  in  him  life  enough 
to  animate  all  his  surroundings.  Whether  he  makes  or 
niars  it  is  all  one  to  him  :  it  is  enough  that  he  has  changed 
the  state  of  things,  and  every  change  is  an  action.  If  he 
seems  by  preference  to  destroy,  this  is  not  from  mischief; 
but  the  act  of  construction  is  always  slow,  and  the  act  of 
destruction  being  quicker  is  more  suited  to  his  vivacity."* 

One  of  the  first  requisites  in  the  care  of  the  young  is 

pas  briller  les  gouvemantes  et  les  pr^cepteurs ;  mais  elle  forme  des 
■  hommes  judicieux,  robustes,  sains  de  corps  et  d'entendment,  qui,  sans 
s'etre  fait  admirer  etant  jeunes,  se  font  honorer  etant  grands. 

*  "  L'activite  d^faillante  se  concentre  dans  le  coeur  du  vieillard  ;  dans 
celui  de  I'enfant  elle  est  surabondante  et  s'etend  au  dehors;  il  se  sent, 
pour  ainsi  dire,  assez  de  vie  pour  animer  tout  ce  qui  I'environne.  Qu'il 
fasse  ou  qu'il  defasse,  il  n'importe  ;  il  suffit  qu'il  change  I'^tat  des  choses, 
et  tout  changement  est  une  action.  Que  s'il  semble  avoir  plus  de  pen- 
chant \  detruire,  ce  n'est  point  par  mechancete,  c'est  que  Taction  qui 
forme  est  toujours  letite,  et  que  celle  qui  detruit,  ^tant  plus  rapide,  coa- 
vient  mieux  4  sa  vivacit^"    ^m.  j.,  47. 


256  ROUSSEAU. 


No  sitting  still  or  reading. 


then  to  provide  for  the  expansion  of  their  activity.  All 
restraints  such  as  swaddling  clothes  for  infants  and  "school" 
and  "  lessons  "  for  children  are  to  be  entirely  done  away 
with.*  Literary  instruction  must  not  be  thought  of. 
"There  must  be  no  other  book  than  the  world,"  says 
Rousseau,  **  no  other  instruction  than  facts.  The  child  who 
reads  does  not  think,  he  does  nothing  but  read,  he  gets  no 
instruction ;  he  learns  words :  Point  d'autre  livre  que  le 
monde,  point  d'autre  instruction  que  les  faits.  L'enfant 
qui  lit  ne  pense  pas,  il  ne  fait  que  lire  ;  il  ne  s'instruit  pas, 
il  apprend  les  mots."     {Em.  iij.,  181. )t 

*  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  man  more  English,  in  a  good  sense, 
than  the  present  Lord  Derby  or,  whether  we  say  it  in  praise  or  dispraise, 
a  man  less  like  Rousseau.  So  it  is  interesting  to  find  him  in  agreement 
with  Rousseau  in  condemning  the  ordinary  restraints  of  the  school- 
room. "  People  are  beginning  to  find  out  what,  if  they  would  use  their 
own  observation  more,  and  not  follow  one  another  like  sheep,  they 
would  have  found  out  long  ago,  that  it  is  doing  positive  harm  to  a 
young  child,  mental  and  bodily  harm,  to  keep  it  learning  or  pretending 
to  learn,  the  greater  part  of  the  day.  Nature  says  to  a  child,  '  Run 
about,'  the  schoolmaster  says,  *  Sit  still;'  and  as  the  schoolmaster 
can  punish  on  the  spot,  and  Nature  only  long  afterwards,  he  is  obeyed, 
and  health  and  brain  suffer." — Speech  in  1864. 

t  All  this  is  very  crude,  and  so  is  the  artifice  by  which  Julie  in  the 
Nouvelle  Heldise  entraps  her  son  into  learning  to  read.  No  doubt 
Rousseau  is  right  when  he  says  that  where  there  is  a  desire  to  read  the' 
powei  is  sure  to  come.  But  "  reading  "  is  one  thing  in  the  lives  of  the 
labouring  classes  to  whom  it  means  reading  aloud  in  school,  and  quite 
another  in  families  of  literary  tastes  and  habits  with  whom  the  range  of 
thought  is  in  a  great  measure  dependent  on  books.  In  such  families 
the  children  learn  to  read  as  surely  as  they  learn  to  talk.  They 
mostly  have  access  to  books  which  they  read  to  themselves  for 
pleasure ;  and  of  course  it  is  absurdly  untrue  to  say  that  they  learn 
nothing  but  words  and  do  not  think.  In  my  opinion  it  may  be  ques- 
tioned whether  the  world  of  fiction  into  which  their  reading  gives  them 


ROUSSEAU.  257 


Memory  without  books. 


§  23.  If  it  be  objected  that,  according  to  Rousseau's 
plan,  there  would  be  a  neglect  of  memory,  he  replies  : 
"  Without  the  study  of  books  the  kind  of  memory  that  a 
child  should  have  will  not  remain  inactive  ;  all  he  sees,  all 
he  hears,  strikes  him,  and  he  remembers  it;  he  keeps  a 
record  in  himself  of  people's  actions  and  people's  talk;  and 
all  around  him  makes  the  book  by  which  without  thinking 
of  it  he  is  constantly  enriching  his  memory  against  the  time 
that  his  judgment  may  benefit  by  it :  Sans  ^tudier  dans  les 
livres,  I'espece  de  memoire  que  peut  avoir  un  enfant  ne 
reste  pas  pour  cela  oisive ;  tout  ce  qu'il  voit,  tout  ce  qu'il 
en  tend  le  frappe,  et  il  s'en  souvient ;  il  tient  registre  en  lui- 
meme  des  actions,  des  discours  des  hommes ;  et  tout  ce 
qui  I'environne  est  le  livre,  dans  lequel,  sans  y  songer,  il 
enrichit  continuellement  sa  memoire,  en  attendant  que  son 
jugement  puisse  en  piofiter."  {Em.  ij.,  106.)  We  should  be 
most  careful  not  to  commit  to  our  memory  anything  we  do 
not  understand,  for  if  we  do,  we  can  never  tell  what  part  of 
our  stores  really  belong  to  us.     {Em.  iij.,  236.) 

§  24.  On  the  positive  side  the  m®st  striking  part  of 
Rousseau's  advice  relates  to  the  training  of  the  senses. 
"  The  first  faculties  which  become  strong  in  us,"  says  he, 
"  are  our  senses.  These  then  are  the  first  that  should  be 
cultivated ;  they  are  in  fact  the  only  faculties  we  forget  or 

the  entree  does  not  withdraw  them  too  much  from  the  actual  world  in 
which  they  live.  The  elders  find  it  very  convenient  when  the  child  can 
always  be  depended  on  to  amuse  himself  with  a  book  ;  but  noise  and 
motion  contribute  more  to  health  of  body  and  perhaps  of  mind  also. 
While  children  of  well-to-do  parents  often  read  too  much,  the  children 
of  our  schools  "under  government  "  hardly  get  a  notion  what  reading 
is.  In  these  schools  "  reading  "  always  stands  for  vocal  reading,  and 
the  power  and  the  habit  of  using  books  for  pleasure  or  for  knowledge 
(other  than  verbal)  are  little  cultivated. 


258  ROUSSEAU. 


Use  of  the  senses  in  childhood. 

at  least  those  which  we  neglect  most  completely."  We  find 
that  the  young  child  "wants  to  touch  and  handle  every^- 
thlng.  By  no  means  check  this  restlessness  ;  it  points  to  a 
very  necessary  apprenticeship.  Thus  it  is  that  the  child 
gets  to  be  conscious  of  the  hotness  or  coldness,  the  hardness 
or  softness,  the  heaviness  or  lightness  of  bodies,  to  judge  of 
their  size  and  shape  and  all  their  sensible  properties  by 
looking,  feeling,  listening,  especially  by  comparing  sight 
and  touch,  and  combining  the  sensations  of  the  eye  with 
those  of  the  fingers."*  "  See  a  cat  enter  a  room  for  the 
first  time;  she  examines  round  and  stares  and  sniffs  about 
without  a  moment's  rest,  she  is  satisfied  with  nothing  before 
she  has  tried  it  and  made  it  out.  This  is  just  what  a  child 
does  when  he  begins  to  walk,  and  enters,  so  to  say,  the 
chamber  of  the  world.  The  only  difference  is  that  to  the 
sight  which  is  common  to  the  child  and  the  cat  the  first 
joins  in  his  observations  the  hands  which  nature  has  given 
him,  and  the  other  animal  that  subtle  sense  of  smell  which 
has  been  bestowed  upon  her.  It  is  this  tendency,  according 
as  it  is  well  cultivated  or  the  reverse,  that  makes  children 
either  sharp  or  dull,  active  or  slow,  giddy  or  thoughtful. 

"The  first  natural  movements  of  the  child  being  then  to 
measure  himself  with  his  surroundings  and  to  test  in 
everything  he  sees  all  its  sensible  properties  which  may 
concern   him,   his   first   study   is   a   kind    of  experimental 

*  "  II  veut  tout  toucher,  tout  manier  ;  ne  vous  opposez  point  k  celte 
inquietude ;  elle  lui  sugg^re  un  apprentissage  tres-necessaire.  C'tst 
ainsi  qu'il  apprend  k  sentir  la  chaleur,  le  froid,  la  duret6,  la  moliesse, 
la  pesanteur,  la  leg^rete  des  corps ;  k  juger  de  leur  grandeur,  de  leur 
figure  et  de  toules  leurs  qualites  sensibles,  en  regardant,  palpant, 
dcouiant,  surtout  en  comparant  la  vue  au  toucher,  en  estimant  k  I'oail 
la  sensation  qu'ils  feraient  sous  ses  doigts."     Sm.  j.,  43. 


ROUSSEAU.  259 


Intellect  based  on  the  senses. 


physics  relating  to  his  own  preservation  ;  and  from  this  we. 
divert  him  to  speculative  studies  before  he  feels  himself  at 
home  here  below.  So  long  as  his  delicate  and  flexible 
organs  can  adjust  themselves  to  the  bodies  on  which  they 
ought  to  act,  so  long  as  his  senses  as  yet  uncorrupted  are 
free  from  illusion,  this  is  the  time  to  exercise  them  all  in 
their  proper  functions ;  this  is  the  time  to  learn  to  under- 
stand the  sensuous  relations  which  things  have  with  us. 
As  everything  that  enters  the  mind  finds  its  way  through 
the  senses,  the  first  reason  of  a  human  being  is  a  reason  of 
sensations;  this  it  is  which  forms  the  basis  of  the  intellectual 
reason;  our  first  masters  in  philosophy  are  our  feet,  our 
hands,  our  eyes.  Substituting  books  for  all  this  is  not 
teaching  us  to  reason,  but  simply  to  use  the  reason  of  other 
people ;  it  teaches  us  to  take  a  great  deal  on  trust  and 
never  to  know  anything. 

"  In  order  to  practise  an  art  we  must  begin  by  getting 
the  proper  implements ;  and  that  we  may  have  good  use  of 
these  implements  they  must  be  made  strong  enough  to 
stand  wear  and  tear.  That  we  may  learn  to  think  we  must 
then  exercise  our  members,  our  senses,  our  organs,  as  these 
are  the  implements  of  our  intelligence;  and  that  we  may 
make  the  most  of  these  implements  the  body  which  supplies 
them  must  be  strong  and  healthy.  We  see  then  that  far 
from  man's  true  reason  forming  itself  independently  of  his 
body,  it  IS  the  sound  constitution  of  the  body  that  makes 
the  operations  of  the  mind  easy  and  certain."* 

*  "  Voyez  un  chat  entrer  pour  la  premiere  fois  dans  une  chambre:  il 
visite,  il  regarde,  il  flaire,  il  ne  reste  pas  un  moment  en  repos,  il  ne  se 
fie  a  rien  qu'apres  avoir  tout  examine,  tout  connu.  Ainsi  fait  un  enfant 
commenyant  k  marcher,  et  entrant  pour  ainsi  dire  dans  I'espace  du 
monde,     Toute  la  difference  est  qu'k.  la  vue,  commune  k  1' enfant  et  au 


26o  ROUSSEAU. 


Cultivation  of  the  senses. 


§  25.  Rousseau  does  not  confine  himself  to  advising 
that  the  senses  should  be  cultivated ;  he  also  gives  some 
hints  of  the  way  in  which  they  should  be  cultivated,  and 
many  modern  experiments,  such  as  "  object  lessons "  and 
the  use  of  actual  weights  and  measures,  may  be  directly 
traced  to  him.  "  As  soon  as  a  child  begins  to  distinguish 
objects,  a  proper  choice  should  be  made  in  those  which  are 
presented  to  him."  Elsewhere  he  says,  "  To  exercise  the 
senses  is  not  simply  to  make  use  of  them  ;  it  is  to  learn  to 
judge  aright  by  means  of  them ;  it  is  to  learn,  so  to  say,  to 
perceive ;  for  we  can  only  touch  and  see  and  hear  according 
as  we  have  learnt  how.  There  is  a  kind  of  exercise 
perfectly  natural  and  mechanical  which  serves  to  make  the 
body  strong  without  giving  anything  for  the  judgment  to  lay 
hold  of:  swimming,  running,  jumping,  whip-top,  stone 
throwing ;  all  this  is  capital ;  but  have  we  nothing  but  arms 
and  legs  ?  have  we  not  also  eyes  and  ears  ?  and  are  these 
organs  not  needed  in  our  use  of  the  others  ?  Do  not  then 
merely  exercise   the  strength  but  exercise   all  the  senses 

chat,  le  premier  joint,  pour  observer,  les  mains  que  lui  donna  la  nature, 
et  I'autre  I'odorat  subtil  dont  elle  I'a  doue.  Cette  disposition,  bien  ou 
mal  cultivee,  est  ce  qui  rend  les  enfants  adroits  ou  lourds,  pesants  ou 
dispos,  etourdis  ou  prudents.  Les  premiers  mouvements  naturels  de 
I'homme  etant  done  de  se  mesurer  avec  tout  ce  qui  I'environne,  et 
d'eprouver  dans  chaque  objet  qu'il  aperjoit  toutes  les  qualites  sensibles 
qui  peuvent  se  rapporter  k  lui,  sa  premiere  ^tude  est  une  sorte  de 
physique  expdrimentale  relative  \  sa  propre  conservation,  et  dont  on  le 
detourne  par  des  etudes  speculatives  avant  qu'il  ait  reconnu  sa  place 
ici-bas.  Tandis  que  ses  organes  delicats  et  flexibles  peuvent  s'ajuster 
aux  corps  sur  lesquels  ils  doivent  agir,  tandis  que  ses  sens  encore  purs 
Bont  exempts  d'illusion,  c'est  le  temps  d'exercer  les  uns  et  les  autres 
aux  fonctions  qui  leur  sont  propres ;  c'est  le  temps  d'apprendre  4 
connaitre  les  rapports  sensibles  que  les  choses  ont  avec  nous.  Comme 
toot  ce  qui  entre  dans  I'entendement  humain  y  vient  par  les  sens,  la 


ROUSSEAU.  261 


Music  and  drawing*. 


which  direct  it ;  get  all  you  can  out  of  each  of  them,  and 
then  check  the  impressions  of  one  by  the  impressions  of 
another.     Measure,  reckon,  weigh,  compare."* 

§  26.  Two  subjects  there  were  in  which  Emile  was  to 
receive  instruction,  viz. :  music  and  drawing.  Rousseau's 
advice  about  drawing  is  well  worth  considering.  He  says  : 
"  Children  who  are  great  imitators  all  try  to  draw.  I  should 
wish  my  child  to  cultivate  this  art,  not  exactly  for  the  art 
itself,  but  to  make  his  eye  correct  and  his  hand  supple  : 

premiere  raison  de  rhomme  est  une  raison  sensitive  ;  c'elle  qui  sert  de 
base  k  la  raison  intellectuelle  :  nos  premiers  maitres  de  philosophic  sont 
nos  pieds,  nos  mains,  nos  yeux.  Substituer  des  livres  a  tout  cela,  ce 
n'est  pas  nous  apprendre  k  raisonner,  c'est  nous  apprendre  k  nous 
servir  de  la  raison  d'autrui ;  c'est  nous  apprendre  k  beaucoup  croire,  el 
h  ne  jamais  rien  savoir.  Pour  exercer  un  art,  il  faut  commencer  par 
s'en  procurer  les  instruments  ;  et,  pour  pouvoir  employer  utilement  ces 
instruments,  il  faut  les  faire  assez  solides  pour  resister  k  leur  usage. 
Pour  apprendre  a  penser,  il  faut  done  exercer  nos  membres,  nos  sens, 
nos  organes,  qui  sont  les  instruments  de  notre  intelligence  ;  et  pour 
tirer  tout  le  parti  possible  de  ces  instruments,  il  faut  que  le  corps,  qui 
les  fournit,  soit  robuste  et  sain.  Ainsi,  loin  que  la  veritable  raison  de 
I'homme  se  forme  independamment  du  corps,  c'est  la  bonne  constitution 
du  corps  qui  rend  les  operations  de  I'esprit  faciles  et  sures."  JEm.  ij., 
123. 

*  "  Exercer  les  sens  n'est  pas  seulement  en  faire  usage,  c'est  appren- 
dre ci  bien  juger  par  eux,  c'est  apprendre,  pour  ainsi  dire,  k  sentir  ;  car 
nous  ne  savons  ni  toucher,  ni  voir,  ni  entendre,  que  comme  nous  avons 
appris.  II  y  a  un  exercice  purement  naturel  et  mecanique,  qui  sert  k 
rendre  le  corps  robuste  sans  donner  aucune  prise  au  jugement :  nager, 
courir,  sauter,  fouetter  un  sabot,  lancer  des  pierrcs ;  tout  cela  est  fort 
bien  :  mais  n'avons-nous  que  des  bras  et  des  jambes  ?  n'avons-nous  pas 
av.  ;si  des  yeux,  des  oreilles  ?  et  ces  organes  sont-ils  superflus  k  I'usage 
des  p  remiers  ?  N'exercez  done  pas  seulement  les  forces,  exercez  tous  les 
sens  qui  les  dirigent ;  tirez  de  chacun  d'eux  tout  le  parti  possible,  puis 
veiifiez  Timpresbion  de  I'un  par  I'autre.  Mesurez,  comptez,  pesez, 
comparez."     Mm.  ij.,  133. 


262  ROUSSEAU. 


Drawing  from  objects.    Morals. 

I^s  enfants,  grands  imitateurs,  essayent  tous  de  dessiner : 
je  voudrais  que  le  mien  cultivat  cet  art,  non  precisement 
pour  I'art  meme,  mais  pour  se  rendre  I'oeil  juste  et  la 
main  flexible."  {Em.  ij.,  149).  But  i^mile  is  to  be  kept 
clear  of  the  ordinary  drawing-master  who  would  put  him 
to  imitate  imitations ;  and  there  is  a  striking  contrast  be- 
tween Rousseau's  suggestions  and  those  of  the  authorities 
at  South  Kensington,  Technical  skill  he  cares  for  less 
than  the  training  of  the  eye  ;  so  Emile  is  always  to  draw 
fro7n  the  object^  and,  says  Rousseau,  "my  intention  is  not 
so  much  that  he  should  get  to  imitate  the  objects,  as  get  to 
know  them  :  mon  intention  n'est  pas  tant  qu'il  sache  imiter 
les  objets  que  les  connaitre."     {Em.  ij,,  150). 

§  27.  Before  we  pass  the  age  of  twelve  years,  at  which 
point,  as  someone  says,  Rousseau  substitutes  another  Emile 
for  the  one  he  has  hitherto  spoken  of,  let  us  look  at  his 
proposals  for  moral  training.  Rousseau  is  right,  beyond 
question,  in  desiring  that  children  should  be  treated  as 
children.  But  what  are  children  ?  What  can  they  under- 
stand ?  What  is  the  world  in  which  they  live  ?  Is  it  the 
material  world  only,  or  is  the  moral  world  also  open  to 
them?  (Girardin's  R.^  vol.  ij,,  136).  On  the  subject  of 
morals  Rousseau  seems  to  have  admirable  instincts,*  but 

*  E.g. — What  can  be  better  than  this  about  family  life  ?  "  L'attrail 
de  la  vie  domestique  est  le  meilleur  contrepoison  des  mauvaises  moeurs. 
Le  tracas  des  enfants  qu'on  croit  importun  devient  agreable  ;  il  rend 
le  pere  et  la  m^re  plus  necessaires,  plus  chers  I'un  h.  I'autre ;  il  resserre 
tntre  eux  le  lien  conjugal.  Quand  la  famille  est  vivante  et  animee,  les 
soins  domestiques  font  la  plus  ch^re  occupation  de  la  femme  et  le  plus 
doux  amusement  du  mari.  Ainsi  de  ce  seul  abus  corrige  r^sulterait 
bientot  une  reforme  generale  ;  bientot  la  nature  aurait  repris  tous  ses 
droits.  Qu'une  fois  les  femmes  redeviennent  m^res  bientot  les  hommes 
redeviendront  p^res  et  maris."     &m.  j.,  17,     Again  he  says  in  a  leUei 


ROUSSEAU.  263 


Contradictory  statements  on  morals. 

no  principles,  and  moral  as  he  is  "on  instinct,"  there  is 
always  some  confusion  in  what  he  isays.  At  one  time  he 
asserts  that  *'  there  is  only  one  knowledge  to  give  children, 
and  that  is  a  knowledge  of  duty :  "  II  n'y  a  qu'une  science  k 
enseigner  aux  enfants  :  c'est  celle  des  devoirs  de  I'homme." 
{^m.  j.,  26).  Elsewhere  he  says:  "To  know  right  from 
wrong,  to  be  conscious  of  the  reason  of  duty  is  not  the 
business  of  a  child :  Connaitre  le  bien  et  le  mal,  sentir  la 
raison  des  devoirs  de  I'homme,  n'est  pas  ratifaire  d'un 
enfant."  {Em.  ij.,  75).*  In  another  place  he  mounts  his 
hobby  that  "  the  most  sublime  virtues  are  negative  "  {Em. 
ij.,  95),  and  that  about  the  best  man  who  ever  lived  (till  he 
found  Friday?)  was  Robinson  Crusoe.  The  outcome  of  all 
Rousseau's  teaching  on  this  subject  seems  that  we  should  in 

quoted  by  Saint-Marc  Girardin  (ij.,  I2l) — "  L'habitude  la  plus  douce 
qui  puisse  exister  est  celle  de  la  vie  domestique  qui  nous  tient  plus  pres 
de  nous  qu'aucune  autre."  We  may  say  of  Rousseau  what  Emile  says 
of  the  Corsair : — *'  II  savait  k  fond  toute  la  morale  ;  il  n'y  avait  que  la 
pratique  qui  lui  manquat."  {£w.  et  S.  636).  And  yet  he  himself  testi- 
fies : — "  Nurses  and  mothers  become  attached  to  children  by  the  cares 
they  devote  to  them  ;  it  is  the  exercise  of  the  social  virtues  that  carries 
the  love  of  humanity  to  the  bottom  of  our  hearts  ;  it  is  in  doing  good 
that  one  becomes  good  ;  I  know  no  experience  more  certain  than  this  : 
Les  nourrices,  les  meres,  s'attachent  aux  enfants  par  les  soins  qu'elles 
leur  rendent ;  I'exercice  des  vertus  sociales  porte  au  fond  des  coeurs 
I'amour  de  I'humanite  ;  c'est  en  faisant  le  bien  qu'i.n  devient  bon  ;  je 
ne  connais  point  de  pratique  plus  sure."     ^m,  iv,  291. 

*  Elsewhere  he  asserts  in  his  fitful  way  that  there  is  inborn  in  the 
heart  of  man  a  feeling  of  what  is  just  and  unjust.  Again,  after  all  his 
praise  of  negation  he  contradicts  himself,  and  says  :  "  I  do  not  suppose 
that  he  who  does  not  need  anything  can  love  anything ;  and  I  do  not 
suppose  that  he  who  does  not  love  anything  can  be  happy  :  Je  ne  con- 
yois  pas  que  celui  qui  n'a  besoin  de  rien  puisse  aimer  quelque  chose  ; 
je  ne  con5ois  pas  que  celui  qui  n'aime  rien  puisse  etre  heureux  "  ^m. 
iv,  252. 


264  ROUSSEAU. 


The  material  world  and  the  moral. 

every  way  develop  the  child's  animal  or  physical  life,  retard 
his  intellectual  life,  and  ignore  his  life  as  a  spiritual  and 
moral  being. 

§  28.  A  variety  of  influences  had  combined,  as  they 
combme  still,  to  draw  attention  away  from  the  importance 
of  physical  training ;  and  by  placing  the  child's  bodily 
organs  and  senses  as  the  first  things  to  be  thought  of  in 
education,  Rousseau  did  much  to  save  us  from  the  bad 
tradition  of  the  Renascence.  But  there  were  more  things 
in  heaven  and  earth  than  were  dreamt  of  in  his  philosophy, 
and  whatever  Rousseau  might  say,  ^^mile  could  never  be 
restrained  from  inquiring  after  them.  Every  boy  will  thiiik; 
i.e.,  he  will  \.\-{\x\\i  for  himself,  however  unable  he  may  seem 
to  think  in  the  direction  in  which  his  instructors  try  to 
urge  him.  The  wise  elders  who  have  charge  of  him 
must  take  this  into  account,  and  must  endeavour  to  guide 
him  into  thinking  modestly  and  thinking  right.  Then 
again,  as  soon  as  the  child  can  speak,  or  before,  the  world 
of  sensation  becomes  for  him  a  world,  not  of  sensations 
only,  but  also  of  sentiments,  of  sympathies,  of  affections, 
of  consciousness  of  right  and  wrong,  good  and  evil.  All 
these  feelings,  it  is  true,  may  be  affected  by  traditional 
prejudices.  The  air  the  child  breathes  may  also  contain 
much  that  is  noxious ;  but  we  have  no  more  power  to 
exclude  the  atmosphere  of  the  moral  world  than  of  the 
physical.  All  we  can  do  is  to  take  thought  for  fresh  air 
in  both  cases.  As  for  Rousseau's  notion  that  we  can 
withdraw  the  child  from  the  moral  atmosphere,  we  see  in 
it  nothing  but  a  proof  how  httle  he  understood  the  problems 
he  professed  to  solve.* 

*  This  part  of  Rousseau's  scheme  is  well  discussed  by  Saint-Marc 
Girardin  (/. y.  Rousseau,  vol.  ij.).     The  following  passage  is  striking} 


ROUSSEAU.  265 


Shun  over-directing. 


§  29.  Although  the  governor  is  to  devote  himself  to 
a  single  child,  Rousseau  is  careful  to  protest  against  over- 
direction.  "  You  would  stupify  the  child,"  says  he,  "  if  you 
were  constantly  directing  him,  if  you  were  always  saying  to 
him,  '  Come  here  !  Go  there  !  Stop !  Do  this  !  Don't 
do  that ! '  If  your  head  always  directs  his  arms,  his  own 
hviad  becomes  useless  to  him."  {Am.  ij.,  114).  Here  we 
have  a  warning  which  should  not  be  neglected  by  those 
who  maintain  the  Lycees  in  France,  and  the  ordinary  private 
boarding-schools  in  England.  In  these  schools  a  boy  is 
hardly  called  upon  to  exercise  his  will  all  day  long.  He 
rises  in  the  morning  when  he  must ;  at  meals  he  eats  till 
he  is  obliged  to  stop ;  he  is  taken  out  for  exercise  like  a 
horse ;  he  has  all  his  indoor  work  prescribed  for  him  both 
as  to  time  and  quantity.  In  this  kind  of  life  he  never  has 
occasion  to  think  or  act  for  himself.  He  is  therefore  without 
self-reliance.  So  much  care  is  taken  to  prevent  his  doing 
wrong,  that  he  gets  to  think  only  of  checks  from  without. 
He  is  therefore  incapable  of  self-restraint.  In  the  English 
public  schools  boys  have  much  less  supervision  from  their 
elders,  and  organise  a  great  portion  of  their  lives  for  them- 

"  How  is  it  that  Madame  Necker-Saussure  understood  the  child  better 
than  Rousseau  did  ?  She  saw  in  the  child  two  things,  a  creation  and 
a  ground-plan,  something  finished  and  something  begun,  a  perfection 
wliich  prepares  the  way  for  another  perfection,  a  child  and  a  man. 
God,  Who  has  put  together  human  life  in  several  pieces,  has  willed, 
il  is  true,  that  all  these  pieces  should  be  related  to  each  other  ;  but  He 
has  also  willed  that  each  of  them  should  be  complete  in  itself,  so  that 
every  stage  of  life  has  what  it  needs  as  the  object  of  that  period,  and 
also  what  it  needs  to  bring  in  the  period  that  comes  next.  Wonderful 
union  of  aims  and  means  which  shews  itself  at  every  step  in  creation  ! 
In  everything  there  is  aim  and  also  means,  everything  exists  for  itself 
And  also  for  that  which  lies  beyond  it !  (Tout  est  but  et  tout  est  moyen  j 
tout  est  absolu  et  tout  est  relatif.)"    J.  J.  R.,  ij.,  151. 


266  ROUSSEAU. 

Lessons  out  of  school.    Questioning.    At  12. 

selves.  This  proves  a  better  preparation  for  life  after  the 
school  age ;  and  most  public  schoolmasters  would  agree  with 
Rousseau  that  "the  lessons  the  boys  get  from  each  other 
in  the  playground  are  a  hundred  times  more  useful  to  them 
than  the  lessons  given  them  in  school :  les  legons  que  Ics 
^coliers  prennent  entre  eux  dans  la  cour  du  college  leur  sont 
cent  fois  plus  utiles  que  tout  ce  qu'on  leur  dira  jamais  dans 
la  classe."     {^m.  ij.,  123.) 

§  30.  On  questions  put  by  children,  Rousseau  says : 
"The  art  of  questioning  is  not  so  easy  as  it  may  be 
thought ;  it  is  rather  the  art  of  the  master  than  of  the  pupil 
We  must  have  learnt  a  good  deal  of  a  thing  to  be  able  to 
ask  what  we  do  not  know.  The  learned  know  and  inquire, 
says  an  Indian  proverb,  but  the  ignorant  know  not  what  to 
inquire  about."  And  from  this  he  infers  that  children  learn 
less  from  asking  than  from  being  asked  questions.  {N.  Jl.y 
5th  P.  490.) 

§  31.  At  twelve  years  old  Emile  is  said  to  be  fit  for 
mstruction.  "  Now  is  the  time  for  labour,  for  instruction, 
for  study ;  and  observe  that  it  is  not  I  who  arbitrarily  make 
this  choice ;  it  is  pointed  out  to  us  by  Nature  herself." 

§  32.  What  novelties  await  us  here?  As  we  have  seen 
Rousseau  was  determined  to  recommend  nothing  that 
would  harmonise  with  ordinary  educational  practice ;  but 
even  a  genius,  though  he  may  abandon  previous  practice, 
cannot  keep  clear  of  previous  thought,  and  Rousseau's  plan 
for  instruction  is  obviously  connected  with  the  thoughts  of 
Montaigne  and  of  Locke.  But  while  on  the  same  lines 
with  these  great  writers  Rousseau  goes  beyond  them  and  is 
both  clearer  and  bolder  than  they  are. 

§  33.  Rousseau's  proposals  for  instruction  have  the  fol« 
lowing  main  features. 


ROUSSEAU.  267 


No  book-learning.    Study  of  Nature. 

I  St.  Instruction  is  to  be  no  longer  literary  or  linguistic. 
The  teaching  about  words  is  to  disappear,  and  the  young 
are  not  to  learn  by  books  or  about  books. 

2nd.  The  subjects  to  be  studied  are  to  be  mathematics 
and  physical  science. 

3rd.  The  method  to  be  adopted  is  not  the  didactic  but 
the  method  of  self-teaching. 

4th.  The  hands  are  to  be  called  into  play  as  a  means  of 
learning. 

§  34.  I  St.  Till  quite  recently  the  only  learning  ever  given 
in  schools  was  book-learning,  a  fact  to  which  the  language  of 
the  people  still  bears  witness :  when  a  child  does  not  profit 
by  school  instruction  he  is  always  said  to  be  "  no  good  at  his 
book."  Now-a-days  the  tendency  is  to  change  the  character 
of  the  schools  so  that  they  may  become  less  and  less  mere 
•'  Ludi  Literarii."  In  this  Rousseau  seems  to  have  been  a 
century  and  rnore  in  advance  of  us ;  and  yet  we  cannot 
credit  him  with  any  remarkable  wisdom  or  insight  about 
literature.  He  himself  used  books  as  a  means  of  "collecting 
a  store  of  ideas,  true  or  false,  but  at  any  rate  clear"  (J. 
Morley's  Rousseau^  j.  chap.  3,  p.  85),  and  he  has  recorded 
for  us  liis  opinion  that  "  the  sensible  and  interesting  con- 
versations of  a  young  woman  of  merit  are  more  proper  to 
form  a  young  man  than  all  the  pedantical  philosophy  of 
books"  {Confessions,  quoted  by  Morley  j.,  87).  After  this, 
whatever  we  may  think  of  the  merit  of  his  suggestions  we 
can  sit  at  the  Sage's  feet  no  longer. 

§  35.  2nd.  Rousseau  had  himself  little  knowledge  of 
mathematics  and  natural  science,  but  he  was  strongly  in 
favour  of  the  "study  of  Nature";  and  in  his  last  years  his 
devotion  to  botany  became  a  passion.  His  curriculum  for 
]&mile  is  in  the  air,  but  the  chief  thing  is  to  get  him  to 


268  ROUSSEAU. 


Against  didactic  teaching. 


attend  to  the  phenomena  of  nature,  and  "  to  foster  his 
curiosity  by  being  in  no  hurry  to  satisfy  it." 

§  36.  3rd.  About  teaching  and  learning,  there  is  one 
point  on  which  we  find  a  consensus  of  great  authorities  ex- 
tending from  the  least  learned  of  writers  who  was  probably 
Rousseau  to  the  most  learned  who  was  probably  Friedrich 
August  Wolf.  In  one  form  or  other  these  assert  that  there 
is  no  true  teaching  but  ^^^teaching. 

Past  a  doubt  the  besetting  weakness  of  teachers  is  "tell- 
ing." They  can  hardly  resist  the  tendency  to  be  didactic. 
They  have  the  knowledge  which  they  desire  to  find  in  their 
pupils,and  they  cannot  help  expressing  it  and  endeavouring 
to  pass  it  on  to  those  who.  need  it,  "like  wealthy  men  who 
care  not  how  they  give."  But  true  "teaching,"  as  Jacotot  and 
his  disciple  Joseph  Payne  were  never  tired  of  testifying,  is 
"  causing  to  learn,"  and  it  is  seldom  that  "  didactic  "  teaching 
has  this  effect.  Rousseau  saw  this  clearly,  and  clearly  pointed 
out  the  danger  of  didacticism.  As  usual  he  by  exaggeration 
laid  himself  open  to  an  answer  that  seems  to  refute  him,  but 
in  spite  of  this  we  feel  that  there  is  valuable  truth  underlying 
what  he  says.  "I  like  not  explanations  given  in  long  dis- 
courses," says  he ;  "  yoimg  people  pay  little  attention  to  them 
and  retain  httle  from  them.  The  things  themselves  !  The 
things  themselves  !  I  shall  never  repeat  often  enough  that  we 
attach  too  much  importance  to  words  :  with  our  chattering 
education  we  make  nothing  but  chatterers."*  Accordingly 
Rousseau  lays  down  the  rule  that  !6mile  is  not  to   learn 

•  "  Je  n'aime  point  les  explications  en  discours  ;  les  jeunes  gens  y  font 
pen  d'attention  at  ne  les  retiennent  guere.  Les  choses !  les  choses  !  Je 
ne  repeterai  jamais  assez  que  nous  donnons  trop  de  pouvoir  aux  mots  : 
avec  notre  education  babillarde  nous  ne  faisons  que  des  babiUards." 
^m.  iij.,  198. 


ROUSSEAU.  269 


R.  exaggerates  about  self-teaching. 

science  but  to  invent  it  (qu'il  n'apprenne  pas  la  science ;  qu'il 
I'invente) ;  and  he  even  expects  him  to  invent  geometry. 
As  Emile  is  not  supposed  to  be  a  young  Pascal  but  only  an 
ordinary  boy  with  extraordinary  physical  development  such 
a  requirement  is  obviously  absurd,  and  Herbart  has  reckoned 
it  among  Rousseau's  Hauptfehler  {Pad.  Schriften,  ij.,  242). 
The  training  prescribed  is  in  fact  the  training  of  the  intellec- 
tual athlete  ;  and  the  trainer  may  put  the  body  through  its 
exercises  much  more  easily  than  the  mind.  Of  this  the 
practical  teacher  is  only  too  conscious,  and  he  will  accept 
Rousseau's  advice,  if  at  all,  only  as  "  counsels  of  perfection." 
Rousseau  says  :  "  Emile,  obliged  to  learn  of  himself,  makes 
use  of  his  own  reason  and  not  that  of  others ;  for  to  give 
no  weight  to  opinion,  none  must  be  given  to  authority ;  and 
the  more  part  of  our  mistakes  come  less  from  ourselves  than 
from  other  people.  From  this  constant  exercise  there  should 
result  a  vigour  of  mind  like  that  which  the  body  gets  from 
labour  and  fatigue.  Another  advantage  is  that  we  advance 
only  in  proportion  to  our  strength.  The  mind  like  the  body 
carries  that  only  which  it  can  carry.  When  the  under- 
standing makes  things  its  own  before  they  are  committed 
to  memory,  whatever  it  afterwards  draws  forth  belongs  to  it ; 
but  if  the  memory  is  burdened  with  what  the  understanding 
knows  nothing  about  we  are  in  danger  of  bringing  from  it 
things  which  the  understanding  declines  to  acknowledge."* 

•  •'  Force  d'apprendre  de  lui-meme,  il  use  de  sa  raison  et  non  de  celle 
d'autiui ;  car,  pour  ne  rien  donner  i  ropinion,  il  ne  faut  rien  donner  ^ 
I'autorit^ ;  et  la  plupart  de  nos  erreurs  nous  viennent  bien  moins  de 
nous  que  des  autres.  De  cet  exercice  continuel  il  doit  resulter  une 
vigueur  d'esprit  semblable  \  celle  qu'on  donne  au  corps  par  le  travail  et 
par  la  fatigue.  Un  autre  avantage  est  qu'on  n'avance  qu'i  proportion 
de  ses  forces.  L'esprit,  non  plus  que  le  corps,  ne  porte  que  ce  qu'il  peut 
20 


270  ROUSSEAU. 


Learn  with  effort. 


Again  he  writes :  "  Beyond  contradiction  we  get  much  more 
clear  and  certain  notions  of  the  things  we  learn  thus  of  our- 
selves than  of  those  we  derive  from  other  people's  instruction, 
and  besides  not  accustoming  our  reason  to  bow  as  a  sl.ive 
before  authority,  we  become  more  ingenious  in  finding  con- 
nexions, in  uniting  ideas,  and  in  inventing  our  implements, 
than  when  we  take  all  that  is  given  us  and  let  our  minds  sink 
into  indifference,  like  the  body  of  a  man  who  always  has  his 
clothes  put  on  for  him,  is  waited  on  by  his  servants  and 
drawn  about  by  his  horses  till  at  length  he  loses  the  strength 
and  use  of  his  limbs.  Boileau  boasted  of  having  taught 
Racine  to  find  difficulty  in  rhyming.  Among  all  the  admirable 
methods  of  shortening  the  study  of  the  sciences  we  might 
have  need  that  some  one  should  give  us  a  way  of  learning 
them  with  effort."* 

§  37.  4th.  However  highly  we  may  value  our  gains 
from  the  use  of  books  we  must  admit  that  in  some  ways  the 

porter.  Quand  I'entendement  s'approprie  les  choses  avant  de  les  deposer 
dans  la  memoire,  ce  qu'il  en  tire  ensuite  est  i  lui  :  au  lieu  qu'en  surchar- 
geant  la  memoire,  i  son  insu,  on  s'expose  ^  n'en  jamais  rien  tirer  qui 
lui  soit  propre."     ^m.  iij.,  235. 

*  "  Sans  contredit  on  prend  des  notions  bien  plus  claires  at  bien  plus 
sfires  des  choses  qu'on  apprend  ainsi  de  soi-meme,  que  de  celles  qu'on 
tient  des  enseignements  d'autrui ;  et,  outre  qu'on  n'accoutume  point  sa 
raison  k  se  soumettre  servilement  k  I'autorite,  Ton  se  rend  plus  ingenieux 
&  trouver  des  rapports,  ^  lier  des  idees,  a  inventer  des  instruments,  que 
quand,  adoptant  tout  cela  tel  qu'on  nous  le  donne,  nous  laissons  affaisser 
notre  esprit  dans  la  nonchalance,  comme  le  corps  d'un  homme  qui, 
toujours  habille,  chausse,  servi  par  ses  gens  et  traine  par  ses  chevaux, 
perd  a  la  fin  la  force  et  I'usage  de  ses  membres.  Boileau  se  vantait 
d'avoir  appris  k  Racine  a  rimer  difficilement.  Parmi  tant  d'admirables 
method  es  pour  abreger  I'etude  des  sciences,  nous  aurions  grand  besoin 
que  quelqu'un  nous  en  donnat  une  pour  les  apprendre  avec  effort, " 
'^m.  iij.,  193. 


ROUSSEAU.  271 


Hand-work.    The  "New  Education." 

use  of  books  tends  to  the  neglect  of  powers  that  should  not 
be  neglected.  As  Rousseau  wished  to  see  the  young 
biouglit  up  without  books  he  naturally  looked  to  other  means 
of  learning,  especially  to  learning  by  the  eye  and  by  the 
hand.  Much  is  now  said  about  using  the  hand  for  educa- 
tion, and  many  will  agree  with  Rousseau  :  "  If  instead  of 
making  a  child  stick  to  his  books  I  employ  him  in  a  work- 
shop, his  hands  work  to  the  advantage  of  his  intellect :  he 
becomes  a  philosopher  while  he  thinks  he  is  becoming 
simply  an  artisan  :  Au  lieu  de  coller  un  enfant  sur  des  livres, 
si  je  I'occupe  dans  un  ateUer,  ses  mains  travaillent  au  profit 
de  son  esprit :  il  devient  philosophe,  et  croit  n'etre  qu'un 
ouvrier."     {]^m.  iij.,  193). 

§  38.  In  these  essays  I  have  done  what  I  could  to  shew 
the  best  that  each  reformer  has  left  us.  In  Rousseau's  case 
I  have  been  obliged  to  confine  myself  to  his  words.  "  We 
attach  far  too  much  importance  to  words,"  said  Rousseau, 
and  yet  it  is  by  words  and  words  only  that  Rousseau  still 
lives  ;  and  for  the  sake  of  his  words  we  forget  his  deeds.  Of 
the  itnile  Mr.  Morley  says  :  "  It  is  one  of  the  seminal 
books  in  the  history  of  literature.  It  cleared  away  the 
accumulation  of  clogging  prejudices  and  obscure  inveterate 
usage  which  made  education  one  of  the  dark  formalistic  arts  ; 
and  it  admitted  floods  of  light  and  air  into  tightly-closed 
nurseries  and  schoolrooms  "  {Rousseau,  ij.,  248).  In  the 
region  of  thought  it  set  us  free  from  the  Renascence  ;  and 
it  did  more  than  this,  it  announced  the  true  nature  of  the 
teacher's  calling,  "  Study  the  subject  you  have  to  act  upon."  In 
these  words  we  have  the  starting  point  of  the  "New 
Education."  From  them  the  educator  gets  a  fresh  conception 
of  his  task.  We  grown  people  have  received  innumerable 
impressions  which,  forgotten  as  they  are,  have  left  their  mark 


«72  ROUSSEAU. 


The  Teacher's  business. 


behind  in  our  way  of  looking  at  things  ;  and  as  we  advance 
in  h'fe  these  experiences  and  associations  cluster  around 
everything  to  which  we  direct  our  attention,  till  in  the  end 
the  past  seems  to  dominate  the  present  and  to  us  "  nothing  is 
but  what  is  not."  But  to  the  child  the  present  with  its 
revelations  and  the  future  which  will  be  "  something  more, 
a  bringer  of  new  things,"  are  all  engrossing.  It  is  our 
business  as  teachers  to  try  to  realize  how  the  world  looks 
from  the  child's  point  of  view.  We  may  know  a  great  many 
things  and  be  ready  to  teach  them,  but  we  shall  have  httle 
success  unless  we  get  another  knowledge  which  we  cannot 
teach  and  can  learn  only  by  patient  observation,  a  know- 
ledge of  "  the  subject  to  be  acted  on,"  of  the  mind  of  our 
pupils  and  what  goes  on  there.  When  we  set  out  on  this 
path,  which  was  first  clearly  pointed  out  by  Rousseau, 
teaching  becomes  a  new  occupation  with  boundless 
possibilities  and  unceasing  interest  in  it  Every  teacher 
becomes  a  learner,  for  we  have  to  study  the  minds  of  the 
young,  their  way  of  looking  at  things,  their  habits,  their 
difficulties,  their  likes  and  dislikes,  how  they  are  stimulated 
to  exertion,  how  they  are  discouraged,  how  one  mood 
succeeds  another.  What  we  need  we  may  well  devote  a 
lifetime  to  acquiring  ;  it  is  a  knowledge  of  the  human  mind 
with  the  object  of  influencing  it 


XV. 

BASEDOW  AND  THE  PHILAN- 
THROPINUM. 


§  I.  One  of  the  most  famous  movements  ever  made  in 
educational  reform  was  started  in  the  last  century  by  John 
Bernard  Basedow.  Basedow  was  born  at  Hamburg  in  1723, 
the  son  of  a  wigmaker.  His  early  years  were  not  spent  in  the 
ordinary  happiness  of  childhood.  His  mother  he  describes 
as  melancholy,  almost  to  madness,  and  his  father  was  severe 
almost  to  brutality.  It  was  the  father's  intention  to  bring 
up  his  son  to  his  own  business,  but  the  lad  ran  away,  and 
engaged  himself  as  servant  to  a  gentleman  in  Holstein.  The 
master  soon  perceived  what  had  never  occurred  to  the 
father,  viz.,  that  the  youth  had  very  extraordinary  abilities. 
Sent  home  with  a  letter  from  his  master  pointing  out  this 
notable  discovery,  Basedow  was  allowed  to  renounce  the 
paternal  calling,  and  to  go  to  the  Hamburg  Grammar  School 
{Gymnasium),  where  he  was  under  Reimarus,  the  author  of 
the  "  WolfenbUttel  Fragment."  In  due  course  his  friends 
managed  to  send  him  to  the  University  of  Leipzig  to  prepare 
himself  for  the  least  expensive  of  the  learned  professions — 
the  cleiical.  Basedow,  however,  was  not  a  man  to  follow 
the  beaten  tracks.  After  an  irregular  life  he  left  the  univer« 
sity  too  unorthodox  to  think  of  being  ordained,  and  in  1749 
became  private  tutor  to  the  children  of  Herr  von  Quaalen 


274  BASEDOW. 


B.  tries  to  mend  religion  and  teaching. 

in  Holstein,  In  this  situation  his  talent  for  inventing  new 
methods  of  teaching  first  showed  itself  He  knew  how  to 
adapt  himself  to  the  capacity  of  the  children,  and  he  taught 
them  much  by  conversation,  and  in  the  way  of  play,  con- 
necting his  instruction  with  surrounding  objects  in  the  house, 
garden,  and  fields.  Through  Quaalen's  influence,  he  next 
obtained  a  professorship  at  Soroe,  in  Denmark,  where  he 
lectured  for  eight  years,  but  his  unorthodox  writings  raised  a 
storm  of  opposition,  and  the  Government  finally  removed 
him  to  the  Gymnasium  at  Altona.  Here  he  still  continued 
his  efforts  to  change  the  prevailing  opinions  in  religious 
matters ;  and  so  great  a  stir  was  made  by  the  publication  of 
his  "  Philalethia,"  and  his  "  Methodical  Instruction  in  both 
Natural  and  Biblical  Religion,"  that  he  and  his  family  were 
refused  the  Communion  at  Altona,  and  his  books  were 
excluded,  under  a  heavy  penalty,  from  Liibeck. 

§  2.  About  this  time  Basedow,  incited  by  Rousseau's 
."  Emile,"  turned  his  attention  to  a  fresh  field  of  activity,  in 
which  he  was  to  make  as  many  friends  as  in  theology  he 
had  found  enemies.  A  very  general  dissatisfaction  was  then 
felt  with  the  condition  of  the  schools.  Physical  education 
was  not  attempted  in  them.  The  mother-tongue  was 
neglected.  Instruction  in  Latin  and  Greek,  which  was  the 
only  instruction  given,  was  carried  on  in  a  mechanical  way, 
without  any  thought  of  improvement.  The  education  of  the 
poor  and  of  the  middle  classes  received  but  little  attention. 
"Youth,"  says  Raumer,  "was  in  those  days,  for  most 
children,  a  sadly  harassed  period.  Instruction  was  hard  and 
heartlessly  severe.  Grammar  was  caned  into  the  memory, 
so  were  portions  of  Scripture  and  poetry.  A  common  school 
punishment  was  to  learn  by  heart  Psalm  cxix.  School- 
rooms were  dismally  dark.     No  one  conceived  it  possible 


BASEDOW.  275 


Reform  needed.    Subscription  for  "Elementary." 

that  the  young  could  find  pleasure  in  any  kind  of  work,  or 
that  they  had  eyes  for  aught  besides  reading  and  writing. 
The  pernicious  age  of  Louis  XIV.  had  inflicted  on  the  poor 
children  of  the  upper  class,  hair  curled  by  the  barber  and 
messed  with  powder  and  pomade,  braided  coats,  knee 
breeches,  silk  stockings,  and  a  dagger  by  the  side — for  active, 
lively  children  a  perfect  torture"  {Gesch.  d.  Pddagogik,  ii. 
297).  Kant  gave  expression  to  a  very  wide-spread  feeling 
when  he  said  that  what  was  wanted  in  education  was  no 
longer  a  reform  but  a  revolution.  Here,  then,  was  a  good 
scope  offered  for  innovators,  and  Basedow  was  a  prince  of 
innovators. 

,  §  3.  Having  succeeded  in  interesting  the  Danish 
minister,  Bernstorfif,  in  his  plans,  he  was  permitted  to  devote 
himself  entirely  to  a  work  on  the  subject  of  education 
whilst  retaining  his  income  from  the  Altona  Gymnasium. 
The  result  was  his  "  Address  to  Philanthropists  and  Men  of 
Property  on  Schools  and  Studies  and  their  Influence  on  the 
Public  Weal "  (1766),  in  which  he  announces  the  plan  of  his 
"Elementary."*  In  this  address  he  calls  upon  princes, 
governments,  town-councils,  dignitaries  of  the  Church, 
freemasons'  lodges,  &c.,  &c.,  if  they  loved  their  fellow- 
creatures,  to  come  to  his  assistance  in  bringing  out  his 
book.  Nor  did  he  call  in  vain.  When  the  "  Elementary  " 
at  length  appeared  (in  1774),  he  had  to  acknowledge 
contributions  from  the  Emperor  Joseph  II.,  from  Catherme 
II,  of  Russia,  from  Christian  VII.  of  Denmark,  from  the 
Grand  Prince  Paul,  and  many  other  celebrities,  the  total 
sum  leceived  being  over  2,000/. 

•  I  avail  myself  of  the  old  substantival  use  of  the  word  elementary  to 
express  its  German  equivalent  Elementarbtich. 


276  BASEDOW. 


A  journey  with  Goethe. 


§  4,  While  Basedow  was  travelling  about  (in  1774)  to  get 
subscriptions,  he  spent  some  time  in  Frankfurt,  and  thence 
made  an  excursion  to  Ems  with  two  distinguished  companions, 
one  of  them  Lavater,  and  the  other  a  young  man  of  five- 
and-twenty,  already  celebrated  as  the'  author  of  "  Gotz  von 
Berlichingen,"  and  the  "Sorrows  of  Werther."  Of  Basedow's 
personal  peculiarities  at  this  time  Goethe  has  left  us  an 
amusing  description  in  the  "  Wahrheit  und  Dichtung ;"  but 
we  must  accept  the  portrait  with  caution  :  the  sketch  was 
thrown  in  as  an  artistic  contrast  with  that  of  Lavater,  and  no 
doubt  exaggerates  those  features  in  which  the  antithesis 
could  be  brought  out  with  best  effect 

"  One  could  not  see,"  writes  Goethe,  "  a  more  marked, 
contrast  than  between  Lavater  and  Basedow.  As  the  lines 
of  Lavater's  countenance  were  free  and  open  to  the  beholder, 
so  were  BasedoVs  contracted,  and  as  it  were  drawn  inwards. 
Lavater's  eye,  clear  and  benign,  under  a  very  wide  eye-lid ; 
Basedow's,  on  the  other  hand,  deep  in  his  head,  small,  black, 
sharp,  gleaming  out  from  under  shaggy  eyebrows,  whilst 
Lavater's  frontal  bone  seemed  bounded  by  two  arches  of  the 
softest  brown  hair.  Basedow's  impetuous  rough  voice,  his 
rapid  and  sharp  utterances,  a  certain  derisive  laugh,  an 
abrupt  changing  of  the  topic  of  conversation,  and  whatever 
else  distinguished  him,  all  were  opposed  to  the  peculiarities 
and  the  behaviour  by  which  Lavater  had  been  making  us 
over-fastidious." 

§  5.  Goethe  approved  of  Basedow's  desire  to  make  all 
instruction  lively  and  natural,  and  thought  that  his  system 
would  promote  mental  activity  and  give  the  young  a  fresher 
view  of  the  world:  but  he  finds  fault  with  the  "Elementary," 
and  prefers  the  "Orbis  Pictus"  of  Comenius,  in  which 
subjects  are  presented  in  their  natural  connection.      Base* 


BASEDOW.  277 


Goethe  on  Basedow. 


dow  himself,  says  Goethe,  was  not  a  man  either  to  edify  or 
to  lead  other  people.  Although  the  object  of  his  journey 
was  to  interest  the  public  in  his  philanthropic  enterprise, 
and  to  open  not  only  hearts  but  purses,  and  he  was  able  to 
speak  eloquently  and  convincingly  on  the  subject  of 
education,  he  spoilt  everything  by  his  tirades  against 
prevalent  religious  belief,  especially  on  the  subject  of  the 
Trinity. 

§  6.  Goethe  found  in  Basedow's  society  an  opportunity 
of  "  exercising,  if  not  enlightening,"  his  mind,  so  he  bore 
with  his  personal  peculiarities,  though  apparently  with  great 
difficulty.  Basedow  seems  to  have  delighted  in  worrying 
his  associates.  "  He  would  never  see  anyone  quiet  but  he 
provoked  him  with  mocking  irony,  in  a  hoarse  voice,  or  put 
him  to  confusion  by  an  unexpected  question,  and  laughed 
bitterly  when  he  had  gained  his  end ;  yet  he  was  pleased 
when  the  object  of  his  jests  was  quick  enough  to  collect 
himself,  and  answer  in  the  same  strain."  So  far  Goethe  was 
his  match ;  but  he  was  nearly  routed  by  Basedow's  use  of 
bad  tobacco,  and  of  some  tinder  still  worse  with  which  he 
was  constantly  lighting  his  pipe  and  poisoning  the  air 
insufferably.  He  soon  discovered  Goethe's  dislike  to  this 
preparation  of  his,  so  he  took  a  malicious  pleasure  in  using 
it  and  dilating  upon  its  merits. 

§  7.  Here  is  an  odd  account  of  their  intercourse. 
During  their  stay  at  Ems  Goethe  went  a  great  deal  into 
fashionable  society.  "  To  make  up  for  these  dissipations," 
he  writes,  "  I  always  passed  a  part  of  the  night  with 
Basedow.  He  never  went  to  bed,  but  dictated  without 
cessation.  Occasionally  he  cast  himself  on  the  couch  and 
slumbered,  while  his  amanuensis  sat  quietly,  pen  in  hand, 
ready  to  continue  his  work  when  the  half-awakened  author 


278  BASEDOW. 


The  Philanthropinum  opened. 

_^j . . 

should  once  more  give  free  course  to  his  thoughts.  AH  this 
took  place  in  a  close  confined  chamber,  filled  with  the 
fumes  of  tobacco  and  the  odious  tinder.  As  often  as  I  was 
disengaged  from  a  dance  I  hastened  up  to  Basedow,  who 
was  ready  at  once  to  speak  and  dispute  on  any  question ; 
and  when  after  a  time  I  hurried  again  to  the  ball-room, 
before  I  had  closed  the  door  behind  me  he  would  resume 
the  thread  of  his  essay  as  composedly  as  if  he  had  been 
engaged  with  nothin'g  else." 

§  8.  It  was  through  a  friend  of  Goethe's,  Behrisch, 
whose  acquaintance  we  make  in  the  "  Wahrheit  und 
Dichtung,"  that  Basedow  became  connected  with  Prince 
Leopold  of  Dessau.  Behrisch  was  tutor  to  the  Prince's 
son,  and  by  hirfi  the  Prince  was  so  interested  in  Basedow's 
plans  that  he  determined  to  found  an  Institute  in  which 
they  should  be  realised.  Basedow  was  therefore  called  to 
Dessau,  and  under  his  direction  was  opened  the  famous 
Philanthropinum.  Then  for  the  first,  and  probably  for  the 
last  time,  a  school  was  started  in  which  use  and  wont 
were  entirely  set  aside,  and  everything  done  on  "  improved 
principles."  Such  a  bold  enterprise  attracted  the  attention 
of  all  interested  in  education,  far  and  near:  but  it  would 
seem  that  few  parents  considered  their  own  children  vilia 
corpora  on  whom  experiments  might  be  made  for  the  public 
good.  When,  in  May  1776,  a  number  of  schoolmasters 
and  others  collected  from  different  parts  of  Germany,  and 
even  from  beyond  Germany,  to  be  present  by  Basedow's 
mvitation  at  an  examination  of  the  children,  they  found 
only  thirteen  pupils  in  the  Philanthropinum,  including 
Basedow's  own  son  and  daughter. 

§  9.  Before  we  investigate  how  Basedow's  principles  were 
embodied  in  the  Philanthropinum,  let  us  see  the  form  in 


BASEDOW.  279 


B.'s  "  Elementary  "  and  "  Book  of  Method." 

which  he  had  already  announced  them.  The  great  work 
from  which  all  children  were  to  be  taught  was  the 
"  Elementary."  As  a  companion  to  this  was  published 
the  "  Book  of  Method "  {Methodenbuch)  for  parents  and 
teachers.  The  "  Elementary  "  is  a  work  in  which  a  great 
deal  of  information  about  things  in  general  is  given  in  the 
form  of  dialogue,  interspersed  with  tales  and  easy  poetry. 
Except  in  bulk,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  to  differ  very 
materially  from  many  of  the  reading-books,  which,  in  late 
years,  have  been  published  in  this  country.  It  had  the 
advantage,  however,  of  being  accompanied  by  a  set  of 
engravings  to  which  the  text  referred,  though  they  were  too 
large  to  be  bound  up  with  it.  The  root-ideas  of  Basedow 
put  forth  in  his  "  Book  of  Method,"  and  other  writings,  are 
those  of  Rousseau.  For  example,  "  You  should  attend  to 
nature  in  your  children  far  more  than  to  art.  The  elegant 
mariners  and  usages  of  the  world  are  for  the  most  part 
unnatural  {Unnatur).  These  come  of  themselves  in  later 
years.  Treat  children  Hke  children,  that  they  may  remain 
the  longer  uncorrupted.  A  boy  whose  acutest  faculties  are 
his  senses,  and  who  has  no  perception  of  anything  abstract, 
must  first  of  all  be  made  acquainted  with  the  world  as  it 
presents  itself  to  the  senses.  Let  this  be  shown  him  in 
nature  herself,  or  where  this  is  impossible,  in  faithful 
drawings  or  models.  Thereby  can  he,  even  in  play,  learn 
kcw  the  various  objects  are  to  be  named.  Comenius  alone 
has  pointed  out  the  right  road  in  this  matter.  By  all 
means  reduce  the  wretched  exercises  of  the  memory." 
Elsewhere  he  gives  instances  of  the  sort  of  things  to  which 
this  method  should  be  applied.  ist.  Man.  Here  he 
would  use  pictures  of  foreigners  and  wild  men,  also  a 
skeleton,  a  hand  in  spirits,  and   other   objects  still  more 


280  BASEDOW. 


Subjects  to  be  taught. 


appropriate  to  a  surgical  museum.  2nd.  Animals.  Only 
such  animals  are  to  be  depicted  as  it  is  useful  to  know 
about,  because  there  is  much  that  ought  to  be  known,  and  a 
good  method  of  instruction  must  shorten  rather  than 
increase  the  hours  of  study.  Articles  of  commerce  made 
from  the  animals  may  also  be  exhibited.  3rd.  Trees  and 
plants.  Only  the  most  important  are  to  be  selected.  Of 
these  the  seeds  also  must  be  shown,  and  cubes  formed  of 
the  different  woods.  Gardeners'  and  farmers'  implements 
are  to  be  explained.  4th.  Minerals  and  chemical  sub- 
stances. 5  th.  Mathematical  instruments  for  weighing  and 
measuring ;  also  the  air-pump,  siphon,  and  the  like.  The 
form  and  motion  of  the  earth  are  to  be  explained  with 
globes  and  maps.  6th.  Trades.  The  use  of  various  tools 
is  to  be  taught.  7th.  History.  This  is  to  be  illustrated  by 
engravings  of  historical  events.  8th.  Commerce.  Samples 
of  commodities  may  be  produced.  9th.  The  younger 
children  should  be  shown  pictures  of  familiar  objects  about 
the  house  and  its  surroundings. 

§  10.  We  see  from  this  list  that  Basedow  contemplated 
giving  his  educational  course  the  charm  of  variety. 
Indeed,  with  that  candour  in  acknowledging  mistakes  which 
partly  makes  amends  for  the  effrontery  too  common  in  the 
trumpetings  of  his  own  performances,  past,  present,  and  to 
come,  he  confesses  that  when  he  began  the  "  Elementary  " 
he  had  exaggerated  notions  of  the  amount  boys  were 
capable  of  learning,  and  that  he  had  subsequently  very 
much  contracted  his  proposed  curriculum.  And  even  "  the 
Revolution,"  which  was  to  introduce  so  much  new  learning 
into  the  schools,  could  not  afford  entirely  to  neglect  the 
old.  However  pleased  parents  might  be  with  the  novel 
acquirements  of  their  children,  they  were  not  likely  to  be 


BASEDOW.  281 


French  and  Latin.    Religion. 


satisfied  without  the  usual  knowledge  of  Latin,  and  still 
If.ss  would  they  tolerate  the  neglect  of  French,  which  in 
German  polite  society  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  the 
recognised  substitute  for  the  vulgar  tongue.  These,  then, 
must  be  taught.  But  the  old  methods  might  be  abandoned, 
if  not  the  old  subjects.  Basedow  proposed  to  teach  both 
French  and  Latin  by  conversation.  Let  a  cabinet  of  models, 
or  something  of  the  kind,  be  shown  the  children  ;  let  them 
learn  the  names  of  the  different  objects  in  Latin  or  French ; 
then  let  questions  be  asked  in  those  languages,  and  the 
right  answers  at  first  put  into  the  children's  mouths.  When 
they  have  in  this  way  acquired  some  knowledge  of  the 
language,  they  may  apply  it  to  the  translating  of  an  easy 
book.  Basedow  does  not  claim  originality  for  the  conver- 
sational method.  He  appeals  to  the  success  with  which  it 
had  been  already  used  in  teaching  French.  "Are  the 
French  governesses,"  he  asks,  "  who,  without  vocabularies 
and  grammars,  first  by  conversation,  then  by  reading,  teach 
their  language  very  successfully  and  very  rapidly  in  schools 
of  from  thirty  to  forty  children,  better  teachers  than  most 
masters  in  our  Latin  schools?" 

§  II.  On  the  subject  of  religion  the  instruction  was  to 
be  quite  as  original  as  in  matters  of  less  importance.  The 
teachers  were  to  give  an  impartial  account  of  all  religions, 
and  nothing  but  "  natural  religion  "  was  to  be  inculcated- 

§  12.  The  key-note  of  the  whole  system  was  to  be — 
^  everything  according  to  nature.  The  natural  desires  and 
inclirations  of  the  children  were  to  be  educated  and 
directed  aright,  but  in  no  case  to  be  suppressed. 

§  13.  These,  then,  were  the  principles  and  the  methods 
which,  as  Basedow  believed,  were  to  revolutionise  education 
through  the   success  of  the    Philanthropinum.      Basedow 


282  BASEDOW. 


"Fred's  Journey  to  Dessau." 


himself,  as  we  might  infer  from  Goethe's  description  of  him, 
was  by  no  means  a  model  director  for  the  model  Institution, 
but  he  was  fortunate  in  his  assistants.  Of  these  he  had 
three  at  the  time  of  the  public  examination,  of  whom  Wolke 
is  said  to  have  been  the  ablest. 

§  14.  A  lively  description  of  the  examination  was  after- 
wards published  by  Herr  Schummel  of  Magdeburg,  under 
the  title  of  "  Fred's  Journey  to  Dessau."  It  purports  to  be 
written  by  a  boy  of  twelve  years  old,  and  to  describe 
what  took  place  without  attempting  criticism.  A  few 
extracts  will  give  us  a  notion  of  the  instruction  carried  on  in 
the  Philanthropin. 

"  I  have  just  come  from  a  visit  with  my  father  to  the 
Philanthropinum,  where  I  saw  Herr  Basedow,  Herr  Wolke, 
Herr  Simon,  Herr  Schweighauser,  and  the  little  Philan- 
thropinists.  I  am  delighted  with  all  that  I  have  seen,  and 
hardly  know  where  to  begin  my  description  of  it.  There 
are  two  large  white  houses,  and  near  them  a  field  with  trees. 
A  pupil — not  one  of  the  regular  scholars,  but  of  those  they 
call  Famulants  (a  poorer  class,  who  were  servitors) — 
received  us  at  the  door,  and  asked  if  we  wished  to  see 
Herr  Basedow.  We  said  '  Yes,'  and  he  took  us  into  the 
other  house,  where  we  found  Herr  Basedow  in  a  dressing- 
gown,  writing  at  a  desk.  We  came  at  an  inconvenient  time, 
and  Herr  Basedow  said  he  was  very  busy.  He  was  very 
friendly,  however,  and  promised  to  visit  us  in  the  evening. 
We  then  went  into  the  other  house,  and  enquired  for  Herr 
Wolke."  By  him  they  were  taken  to  the  scholars.  "  They 
have,"  says  Fred,  "their  hair  cut  very  short,  and  no  wig- 
maker  is  employed.  Their  throats  are  quite  open,  and 
their  shirt-collars  fall  back  over  their  coats."  Further 
on  he  describes  the  examination.     "  The  little  ones  have 


BASEDOW.  283 


At  the  Philanthropinum. 


gone  through  the  oddest  performances.  They  play  at 
'  word  of  command.'  Eight  or  ten  stand  in  a  line  like 
soldiers,  and  Herr  Wolke  is  officer.  He  gives  the  word  in 
Latin,  and  they  must  do  whatever  he  says.  For  instance, 
when  he  says  Clauditeoculos,  they  all  shut  their  eyes;  when 
he  says  Circumspictte,  they  look  about  them  ;  Imitamini 
sartorem,  they  all  sew  like  tailors  ;  Imitamini  suiorem,  they 
draw  the  waxed  thread  like  the  cobblers.  Herr  Wolke  gives 
a  thousand  different  commands  in  the  drollest  fashion. 
Another  game,  '  the  hiding  game,'  I  will  also  teach  you. 
Some  one  writes  a  name,  and  hides  it  from  the  children — 
the  name  of  some  part  of  the  body,  or  of  a  plant,  or  animal, 
or  metal — and  the  children  guess  what  it  is.  Whoever 
guesses  right  gets  an  apple  or  a  piece  of  cake.  One  of  the 
visitors  wrote  Intestina,  and  told  the  children  it  was  a  part 
of  the  body.  Then  the  guessing  began.  One  guessed 
caput,  another  nasus,  another  os,  another  manus,  pes,  digiii, 
pectus,  and  so  forth,  for  a  long  time ;  but  one  of  them  hit  it 
at  last.  Next  Herr  Wolke  wrote  the  name  of  a  beast,  a 
quadruped.  Then  came  the  guesses :  leo,  ursus,  camelus^ 
elephas,  and  so  on,  till  one  guessed  right — it  was  mus.  Then 
a  town  was  written,  and  they  guessed  Lisbon,  Madrid, 
Paris,  London,  till  a  child  won  with  St.  Petersburg.  They 
had  another  game,  which  was  this  :  Herr  Wolke  gave  the 
command  in  Latin,  and  they  imitated  the  noises  of  different 
animals,  and  m^de  us  laugh  till  we  were  tired.  They  roared 
like  lions,  crowed  like  cocks,  mewed  like  cats,  just  as  they 
were  bid." 

§  15.  The  subject  that  was  next  handled  had  also  the 
effect  of  making  the  strangers  laugh,  till  a  severe  reproof 
from  Herr  Wolke  restored  their  gravity.  A  picture  was 
brought,  in  which  was  represented  a  sad-looking  woman, 


284  BASEDOW. 


Methods  in  the  Philanthropinum. 

whose  person  indicated  the  approaching  arrival  of  another 
subject  for  education.  From  one  part  of  the  picture  it  also 
appeared  that  the  prospective  mother,  with  a  prodigality  of 
forethought,  had  got  ready  clothing  for  both  a  boy  and  a 
girl.  After  a  warning  from  Herr  Wolke,  that  this  was  a 
most  serious  and  important  subject,  the  children  were 
questioned  on  the  topics  the  picture  suggested.  They  were 
further  taught  the  debt  of  gratitude  they  owed  to  their 
mothers,  and  the  German  fiction  about  the  stork  was  dis- 
missed with  due  contempt. 

§  1 6.  Next  came  the  examination  in  arithmetic.  Here 
there  seems  to  have  been  nothing  remarkable,  except  that 
all  the  rules  were  worked  viva  voce.  From  the  arithmetic 
Herr  Wolke  went  on  to  an  "  Attempt  at  various  small 
drawings."  He  asked  the  children  what  he  should  draw. 
Some  one  answered  leonem.  He  then  pretended  he  was 
drawing  a  lion,  but  put  a  beak  to  it ;  whereupon  the  children 
shouted  Non  est  leo — hones  non  habent  rostrum  I  He  went 
on  to  other  subjects,  as  the  children  directed  him,  sometimes 
going  wrong  that  the  children  might  put  him  right.  In  the 
next  exercise  dice  were  introduced,  and  the  children  threw 
to  see  who  should  give  an  account  of  an  engraving.  The 
engravings  represented  workmen  at  their  different  trades, 
and  the  child  had  to  explain  the  process,  the  tools,  &c.  A 
lesson  on  ploughing  and  harrowing  was  given  in  French, 
and  another,  on  Alexander's  expedition  to  India,  in  I^tin. 
Four  of  the  pupils  translated  passages  from  Curtius  and  from 
Castalio's  Bible,  which  were  read  to  them.  "These  chil- 
dren," said  the  teacher,  "  knew  not  a  word  of  Latin  a  year 
ago."  "The  listeners  were  well  pleased  with  the  Latin," 
writes  Fred,  "  except  two  or  three,  whom  I  heard  grumbling 
tliat  this  was  all  child's  play,  and  that  if  Cicero,  Livy,  and 


BASEDOW.  285 


The  Philanthropinum  criticised. 

Horace  were  introduced,  it  would  soon  be  seen  what  was 
the  value  of  Philanthropinist  Latin."  After  the  examination, 
two  comedies  were  acted  by  the  children,  one  in  French, 
the  other  in  German. 

Most  of  the  strangers  seem  to  have  left  Dessau  with  a 
favourable  impression  of  the  Philanthropin.  They  were 
especially  struck  with  the  brightness  and  animation  of  the 
children. 

§  17.  How  far  did  the  Philanthropinum  really  deserve 
their  good  opinion?  The  conclusion  to  which  we  are 
driven  by  Fred's  narrative  is,  that  Basedow  carried  to  excess 
his  principle — "  Treat  children  as  children,  that  they  may 
remain  the  longer  uncorrupted;"  and  that  the  Philan- 
thropinum was,  in  fact,  nothing  but  a  good  infant-school. 
Surely  none  of  the  thirteen  children  who  were  the  subjects 
of  Basedow's  experiments  could  have  been  more  than  ten 
years  old.  But  if  we  consider  Basedow's  system  to  have 
been  intended  for  children,  say  between  the  ages  of  six  and 
ten,  we  must  allow  that  it  possessed  great  merits.  At  the 
very  beginning  of  a  boy's  learning,  it  has  always  been  too 
much  the  custom  to  make  him  hate  the  sight  of  a  book,  and 
escape  at  every  opportunity  from  school-work,  by  giving 
him  difficult  tasks,  and  neglecting  his  acutest  faculties. 
"  Children  love  motion  and  noise,"  says  Basedow  :  "  here 
is  a  hint  from  nature."  Yet  the  youngest  children  in  most 
schools  are  expected  to  keep  quiet  and  to  sit  at  their  books 
for  as  many  hours  as  the  youths  of  seventeen  or  eighteen. 
Their  vivacity  is  repressed  with  the  cane.  Their  delight  in 
exercising  their  hands  and  eyes  and  ears  is  taken  no  notice 
of;  and  they  are  required  to  keep  their  attention  fixed  on 
subjects  often  beyond  their  comprehension,  and  almost 
always  beyond  the  range  of  their  interests.  Everyone  who 
21  ,       , 

ft-    ixA-i-*^       of^^^-u^_^     /yto-tji^     li-*-i.vfllv^tw-^-.  -^    ^ij^    r--^ 


286  BASEDOW. 


B.'s  improvements  in  teaching  children. 

has  had  experience  in  teaching  boys  knows  how  hard  it  is  to 
get  them  to  throw  themselves  heartily  into  any  task  what- 
ever; and  probably  this  difficulty  arises  in  many  cases, 
from  the  habits  of  inattention  and  of  shirking  school- work, 
which  the  boys  have  acquired  almost  necessarily  from  the 
dreariness  of  their  earliest  lessons.*  Basedow  determined 
to  change  all  this ;  and  in  the  Philanthropin  no  doubt  he 
succeeded.  We  have  already  seen  some  of  the  expedients 
by  which  he  sought  to  render  school-work  pleasurable.  He 
appealed,  wherever  it  was  possible,  to  the  children's  senses ; 
and  these,  especially  the  sight,  were  trained  with  great  care 
by  exercises,  such  as  drawing,  shooting  at  a  mark,  &c.  One 
of  these  exercises,  intended  to  give  quick  perception,  bears 
a  curious  likeness  to  what  has  since  been  practised  in  a  very 
different  educational  system.  A  picture,  with  a  somewhat 
varied  subject,  was  exhibited  for  a  short  time  and  removed. 
The  boys  had  then,  either  verbally  or  on  paper,  to  give  an 
account  of  it,  naming  the  different  objects  in  proper  order. 
Houdin,  if  I  rightly  remember,  tells  us  that  the  young 
thieves  of  Paris  are  required  by  their  masters  to  make  a 
mental  inventory  of  the  contents  of  a  shop  window,  which 
they  see  only  as  they  walk  rapidly  by.  Other  exercises  of 
the  Philanthropinum  connected  the  pupils  with  more 
honourable  callings.     They  became  acquainted  with  both 

*  "  Who  has  not  met  with  some  experience  such  as  this  F  A  child 
with  an  active  and  inquiring  mind  accustomed  to  chatter  about  every- 
thing that  interests  him  is  sent  to  school.  In  a  few  weeks  his  vivacity 
is  exiinguished,  his  abundance  of  talk  has  dried  up.  If  you  ask  him 
about  his  studies,  if  you  desire  him  to  give  you  a  specimen  of  what  he 
has  learnt,  he  repeats  to  you  in  a  sing-song  voice  some  rule  for  the  for- 
mation of  tenses  or  some  recipe  for  spelling  words.  Such  are  the  results 
of  the  teaching  which  should  be  of  all  teaching  the  most  fruitful  and  the 
most  attractive  1"     Translated  from  Quelqties  Mots,  &c.,  by  M.  Br^al. 


BASEDOW.  287 


Basedow's  successors. 


skilled  and  unskilled  manual  labour.  Every  boy  was  taught 
a  handicraft,  such  as  carpentering  and  turning,  and  was  put 
to  such  tasks  as  threshing  corn.  Basedow's  division  of  the 
twenty-four  hours  was  the  following :  Eight  hours  for  sleep, 
eight  for  food  and  amusement,  and,  for  the  children  of 
the  rich,  six  hours  of  school-work,  and  two  of  manual  labour. 
In  the  case  of  the  children  of  the  poor,  he  would  have  the 
division  of  the  last  eight  hours  inverted,  and  would  give  for 
school-work  two,  and  for  manual  labour  six.  The  development 
of  the  body  was  specially  cared  for  in  the  Philanthropinum 
Gymnastics  were  now  first  introduced  into  modern  schools  ; 
and  the  boys  were  taken  long  expeditions  on  foot — the 
commencement,  I  believe,  of  a  practice  now  common 
throughout  Germany. 

§  18.  As  I  have  already  said,  Basedow  proved  a  very 
unfit  person  to  be  at  the  head  of  the  model  Institution. 
Many  of  his  friends  agreed  with  Herder,  that  he  was  not  fit 
to  have  calves  entrusted  to  him,  much  less  children.  He 
soon  resigned  his  post ;  and  was  succeeded  by  Campe,  who 
had  been  one  of  the  visitors  at  the  public  examination. 
Campe  did  not  remain  long  at  the  Philanthropinum ;  but 
left  it  to  set  up  a  school,  on  like  principles,  at  Hamburg. 
His  fame  now  rests  on  his  writings  for  the  young ;  one  of 
which — "  Robinson  Crusoe  the  Younger  " — is  still  a  general 
favourite. 

Other  distinguished  men  became  connected  with  the 
Philmthropin — among  them  Salzmann,  and  Matthison  the 
poet — and  the  number  of  pupils  rose  to  over  fifty;  gathered 
we  are  told,  from  all  parts  of  Europe  between  Riga  and 
Lisbon.  But  this  number  is  by  no  means  a  fair  measure  of 
the  interest,  nay,  enthusiasm,  which  the  experiment  excited. 
We  find  Pastor  Oberlin  raising  money  on  his  wife's  earrings 


288  BASEDOW. 


n 


Kant  on  the  Philanthropinum. 


to  send  a  donation.  We  find  the  philosopher  Kant  pro- 
phesying that  quite  another  race  of  men  would  grow  up,  now 
that  education  according  to  Nature  had  been  introduced. 

§  19.  These  hopes  were  disappointed.  Kant  confesses 
as  much  in  the  following  passage  in  his  treatise  "  On 
Paedagogy  " : — 

"  One  fancies,  indeed,  that  experiments  in  education 
would  not  be  necessary  ;  and  that  we  might  judge  by  the 
understanding  whether  any  plan  would  turn  out  well  or  ill. 
But  this  is  a  great  mistake.  Experience  shows  that  often  in 
our  experiments  we  get  quite  opposite  results  from  what  we 
had  anticipated.  We  see,  too,  that  since  experiments  are 
necessary,  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  one  generation  to  form  a 
complete  plan  of  education.  The  only  experimental  school 
which,  to  some  extent,  made  a  beginning  in  clearing  the 
road,  was  the  Institute  at  Dessau.  This  praise  at  least  must 
be  allowed  it,  notwithstanding  the  many  faults  which  could 
be  brought  up  against  it — faults  which  are  sure  to  show 
themselves  when  we  come  to  the  results  of  our  experiments, 
and  which  merely  prove  that  fresh  experiments  are  necessary. 
It  was  the  only  School  in  which  the  teachers  had  liberty  to 
work  according  to  their  own  methods  and  schemes,  and 
where  they  were  in  free  communication  both  among  them- 
selves and  with  all  learned  men  throughout  Germany." 

§  20.  We  observe  here,  that  Kant  speaks  of  the  Philan- 
thropinum as  a  thing  of  the  past.  It  was  finally  closed  in 
1793.  But  even  from  Kant  we  learn  that  the  experiment 
had  been  by  no  means  a  useless  one.  The  conservatives, 
of  course,  did  not  neglect  to  point  out  that  young  Philan- 
thropinists,  when  they  left  school,  were  not  in  all  respects 
the  superiors  of  their  fellow-creatures.  But,  although  no 
one  could  pretend  that  the  Philanthropinum  had  effected  a 


BASEDOW.  289 


Influence  of  Philanthropinists. 


tithe  of  what  Basedow  promised,  and  the  *'  friends  of 
humanity "  throughout  Europe  expected,  it  had  introduced 
!!  many  new  ideas,  which  in  time  had  their  influence,  even  in 
the  schools  of  the  opposite  party.  Moreover,  teachers  who 
had  been  connected  with  the  Philanthropinum  founded 
schools  on  similar  principles  in  different  parts  of  Germany 
and  Switzerland,  as  Bahrd's  at  Heidesheim,  and  Salzmann's 
celebrated  school  at  Schnepfenthal,  which  is,  I  believe, 
still  thriving.  Their  doctrines,  too,  made  converts  among 
other  masters,  the  most  celebrated  of  whom  was  Meierotto 
of  Berlin. 

§  21.  Little  remains  to  be  said  of  Basedow.  He  lived 
chiefly  at  Dessau,  earning  his  subsistence  by  private  tuition, 
but  giving  offence  by  his  irregularities.  In  1790,  when 
visiting  Magdeburg,  he  died,  after  a  short  illness,  in  his 
sixty-seventh  year.  His  last  words  were,  "I  wish  my  body  to 
be  dissected  for  the  good  of  my  fellow-creatures." 


Basedow  has  a  posthumous  connexion  with  this  country  as  the  great- 
grandfather of  Professor  Max  Miiller.  Basedow's  son  became  '•  Re- 
gierungs  Prasident,"  in  Dessau.  The  President's  daughter,  born  in 
i8cx),  became  the  wife  of  the  poet  Wilhelm  Midler,  and  the  mother  of 
Max  Miiller.  Max  Miiller  has  contributed  a  life  of  his  great-grand- 
father to  the  Allgemeine  Deutsche  Biographie. 

Those  who  read  German  and  care  about  either  Basedow  or  Comenius 
should  get  Die  Didaktik  Basedozvs  im  Vergleiche  zur  Didaktik  da 
Comenius  von  Dr.  Petru  Garbovicianu  (Bucarest,  C.  Gobi),  1887.  This 
is  a  very  good  piece  of  work  ;  it  is  printed  in  roman  type,  and  the  price 
is  only  \s.  6d. 

Since  the  above  was  in  type  I  have  got  an  important  book,  L'Educa' 
Hon  en  Alleviagne  au  Dix-huitiime  Sihle:  Basedow  et  le  Philan- 
thropinisme,  by  A.  Pinloche  (Paris,  A.  Colin,  18^-9.) 


XVI. 

§  I.  Qui  facit  per  alium  facit  per  se.  It  is  thus  the  law 
holds  us  accountable  for  the  action  of  others  which  we 
direct.  By  the  extension  of  this  rule  we  immensely  in- 
crease the  personality  of  great  writers  and  may  credit  them 
with  vast  spheres  of  action  which  never  come  within  their 
consciousness.  No  man  gains  and  suffers  more  from  this 
consideration  than  Rousseau.  On  the  one  hand,  we  may 
attribute  to  him  the  crimes  of  Robespierre  and  Saint-Just ; 
on  the  other  Pestalozzi  was  instigated  by  him  to  turn  to 
farming  and — education. 

In  treating  of  Rousseau  as  an  educational  reformer  I 
passed  over  a  life  in  which  almost  every  incident  tends  to 
weaken  the  effect  of  his  words.  With  Pestalozzi  we  must 
turn  to  his  Hfe  for  the  true  source  of  his  writings  and  the 
best  comment  on  them. 

§  2.  John  Henry  Pestalozzi  was  born  at  Zurich  in  1746. 
His  father  dying  when  he  was  five  years  old,  he  was  brought 
up  with  a  brother  and  sister  by  a  pious  and  self-denying 
mother  and  by  a  faithful  servant  "  Babeli,"  who  had  com- 
forted  the  father  in  his  last  hours  by  promising  to  stay  with 
his  family.  Thus  Pestalozzi  had  an  advantage  denied  to 
Rousseau  and  denied  as  it  would  seem  to  Locke;   there 


^  PES7AL0ZZI.  291 

His  childhood  and  student-life. 

was  scope  for  his  home  affections,  and  the  head  was  not 
developed  before  the  heart.  When  he  was  sent  to  a  day- 
school  he  became  to  some  extent  the  laughing  stock  of  his 
companions  who  dubbed  him  Harry  Oddity  of  Foolborough ; 
but  he  gained  their  good-will  by  his  unselfishness.  It  was 
remembered  that  on  the  shock  of  an  earthquake  when 
teachers  and  taught  fled  from  the  school  building  Harry 
Oddity  was  induced  to  go  back  and  bring  away  what  his 
companions  considered  precious.  His  holidays  he  spent 
with  his  grandfather  the  pastor  of  a  village  some  three  miles 
from  Zurich,  where  the  lad  learnt  the  condition  of  the 
rural  poor  and  saw  what  a  good  man  could  do  for  them.  « 
He  always  looked  back  to  these  visits  as  an  important 
element  in  his  education.  "The  best  way  for  a  child  to 
acquire  the  fear  of  God,"  he  wrote,  "is  for  him  to  see  and 
hear  a  true  Christian."  The  grandfather's  example  so 
affected  him  that  he  wished  to  follow  in  his  steps,  and  he 
became  a  student  of  theology.* 

§  3.  Even  as  a  student  Pestalozzi  proved  that  he  was  no 
ordinary  man.  In  his  time  there  was  great  intellectual  and 
moral  enthusiasm  among  the  students  of  the  little  Swiss 
University.  Some  distinguished  professors,  especially  Bod- 
mer,  had  awakened  a  craving  for  the  old  Swiss  virtues  of 
plain  living  and  high  thinking;  and  a  band-  of  students, 
among  whom  Lavater  was  leader  and  Pestalozzi  played  a 
prominent  part,  became  eager  reformers.  The  citizens  of 
the  great  towns  like  Geneva  and  Zurich  had  become  in 
effect  privileged  classes  ;  and  as  their  spokesmen  the  Geneva 
magistrates  condemned  the  Contrat  Social  and  the  Emile, 

*  In  these  visits  he  observed  how  the  children  suffered  from  working 
in  factories.     These  obbervations  influenced  him  in  after  years. 


292  PESTALOZZI. 


A  Radical  Student. 


This  raised  the  indignation  of  the  reforming  students  at 
Zurich;  and  though  their  organ,  a  periodical  called  the 
Memorial,  kept  clear  of  politics,  one  MuUer  wrote  a  papei 
which  contained  some  strong  language,  and  this  was  held 
to  be  proof  of  a  conspiracy.  Muller  fled  and  was  banished. 
Pcstalozzi  and  some  other  of  his  friends  were  imprisoned. 
The  Memorial  was  suppressed. 

§  4.  It  is  in  this  Memorial,  a  weekly  paper  edited  by 
Lavater  who  was  five  years  Pestalozzi's  senior  that  we  have 
Pestalozzi's  earliest  writing.  We  find  him  coming  forward 
as  "a  man  of  aspirations."  No  one  he  says  can  object 
to  his  expressing  his  wishes.  And  "  wishes  "  with  a  man  of 
19  are  usually  hopes.  Among  other  wishes  he  says:  "I 
would  that  some  one  would  draw  up  in  a  simple  manner  a 
few  principles  of  education  intelligible  to  everybody ;  that 
some  generous  people  would  then  share  the  expense  of 
printing,  so  that  the  pamphlet  might  be  given  to  the  public 
for  nothing  or  next  to  nothing.  I  would  then  have  clergy- 
men distribute  it  to  all  fathers  and  mothers,  so  that  they 
might  bring  up  their  children  in  a  rational  and  Christian 
manner.  But,"  he  adds,  "  perhaps  this  is  asking  too  much 
at  a  time." 

The  Memorial  was  suppressed  because  "  the  privileged 
classes  "  knew  that  it  was  in  the  hands  of  their  opponents. 
Pestalozzi  then  and  always  felt  keenly  the  oppression  to 
which  the  peasants  were  exposed ;  and  he  spoke  of  "  the 
privileged  "  as  men  on  stilts  who  must  descend  among  the 
people  before  they  could  secure  a  natural  and  firm  position. 
He  also  satirises  them  in  some  of  his  fables,  as,  e.g.,  that  of 
the  "Fishes  and  the  Pike."  "The  fishes  in  a  pond 
brought  an  accusation  against  the  pike  who  were  making 
great  ravages  among  them.     The  judge,  an  old  pike,  said 


PESTALOZZI.  293 


Turns  farmer.    Bluntschli's  warning. 

that  their  complaint  was  well  founded,  and  that  the 
defendants,  to  make  amends,  should  allow  two  ordinary 
fish  every  year  to  become  pike." 

§  5.  By  this  time  Pestalozzi  had  given  up  theology  and 
Lad  taken  to  the  law.  Now  under  the  influence  of 
Rousseau,  or  rather  of  the  craving  for  a  simple  "  natural " 
life  which  found  its  most  eloquent  expression  in  Rousseau's 
writing,  Pestalozzi  made  a  bonfire  of  his  MSS.  and  decided 
on  becoming  a  farmer. 

§  6.  There  was  another  person  concerned  in  this  decision. 
In  his  childhood  he  had  one  day  ventured  into  the  shop  of 
one  of  the  leading  tradesmen,  Herr  Schulthess,  bent  on  pro- 
curing for  his  farthings  some  object  of  delight ;  but  he  found 
there  a  little  shop-keeper,  Anna  Schulthess,  seven  years  his 
senior,  who  discouraged  his  extravagance  and  persuaded 
him  to  keep  his  money.  Anna  and  he  since  those  days 
had  become  engaged — not  at  all  to  the  satisfaction  of 
her  parents.  Their  intimacy  had  been  strengthened  by 
their  concern  for  a  common  friend,  a  young  man  named 
Bluntschli,  who  died  of  consumption.  This  friend,  three 
years  older  than  Pestalozzi,  seems  to  have  understood  him 
thoroughly;  and  in  the  parting  advice  he  gave  him  there 
was  a  warning  which  happily  for  the  general  good  was  in 
after  years  neglected.  "  I  am  going,"  said  Bluntschli,  "  and 
you  will  be  left  alone.  Avoid  any  career  in  which  you 
might  become  the  victim  of  your  own  goodness  and  trust, 
and  choose  some  quiet  life  in  which  you  will  run  no  risk. 
Above  all,  do  not  take  part  in  any  important  undertaking 
without  having  at  your  side  a  man  who  by  his  cool  judg- 
ment, knowledge  of  men  and  things,  and  unshakable 
fidelity  may  be  able  to  protect  you  from  the  dangers  to 
which  you  will  be  exposed." 


294  PESTALOZZI. 


New  ideas  in  farming.    A  love-letter. 

§  7,  When  the  friendship  with  Anna  Schulthess  had 
ripened  into  a  betrothal  Pestalozzi  spent  a  year  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Bern  learning  farming  under  a  man  then 
famous  for  his  innovations.  His  new  ideas  Pestaloxzi 
absorbed  very  readily.  "  I  had  come  to  him,"  he  says,  *'  a 
political  visionary,  though  with  many  profound  and  correct 
attainments,  views,  and  anticipations  in  matters  political. 
I  went  away  from  him  just  as  great  an  agricultural  visionary, 
though  with  many  enlarged  and  correct  ideas  and  intentions 
with  regard  to  agriculture." 

§  8.  During  his  "learning  year"  he  kept  up  a  corre- 
spondence with  his  betrothed,  and  the  letters  of  both,  which 
have  been  preserved,  differ  very  widely  from  love-letters  in 
general.  Of  himself  Pestalozzi  gives  an  account  which 
shows  that  in  part  at  least  he  could  see  himself  as  others 
saw  him.  "  Dearest,"  he  writes,  "  those  of  my  faults  which 
appear  to  me  most  important  in  relation  to  the  situation  in 
which  I  may  be  placed  in  after-life  are  improvidence, 
incautiousness,  and  a  want  of  presence  of  mind  to  meet 
unexpected  changes  in  my  prospects.  ...  Of  my 
great,  and  indeed  very  reprehensible  negligence  in  all 
matters  of  etiquette,  and  generally  in  all  matters  which  are 
not  in  themselves  of  importance,  I  need  not  speak;  anyone 
may  see  them  at  first  sight  of  me.  I  also  owe  you  the 
open  confession,  my  dear,  that  I  shall  always  consider  my 
duties  toward  my  beloved  partner  subordinate  to  my  duties 
towards  my  country ;  and  that,  although  I  shall  be  the 
tenderest  husband,  nevertheless,  I  hold  myself  bound  to  be 
inexorable  to  the  tears  of  my  wife  if  she  should  ever 
attempt  to  restrain  me  by  them  from  the  direct  performance 
of  my  duties  as  a  citizen,  whatever  this  must  lead  to.  My 
wife  shall  be  the  confidante  of  my  heart,  the  partner  of  all 


PESTALOZZI.  295 


Resolutions.    Buys  land  and  marries. 

my  most  secret  counsels.  A  great  and  honest  simplicity 
shall  reign  in  my  house.  And  one  thing  more.  My  life 
will  not  pass  without  important  and  very  critical  \mdertak- 
ings.  I  shall  not  forget  .  .  .  my  first  resolutions  to 
devote  myself  wholly  to  my  country.  I  shall  never,  from 
fear  of  man,  refrain  from  speaking  when  I  see  that  the  good 
of  my  country  calls  upon  me  to  speak.  My  whole  heart  is 
my  country's :  I  will  risk  all  to  alleviate  the  need  and 
misery  of  my  fellow-countrymen.  What  consequences  may 
the  undertakings  to  which  I  feel  myself  urged  on  draw 
after  them !  how  unequal  to  them  am  I !  and  how  impera- 
tive is  my  duty  to  show  you  the  possibility  of  the  great 
dangers  which  they  may  bring  upon  me !  My  dear,  my 
beloved  friend,  I  have  now  spoken  candidly  of  my  charac- 
ter and  my  aspirations.  Reflect  upon  everything.  If  the 
traits  which  it  was  my  duty  to  mention  diminish  your 
respect  for  me,  you  will  still  esteem  my  sincerity,  and  you 
will  not  think  less  highly  of  me,  that  I  did  not  take  advan- 
tage of  your  want  of  acquaintance  with  my  character  for 
the  attainment  of  my  inmost  wishes." 

§  9.  The  young  lady  addressed  was  worthy  of  her  lover. 
"  Such  nobleness,  su<;h  elevation  of  character,  reach  my 
very  soul,"  said  she.  With  equal  nobleness  she  encouraged 
Pestalozzi  in  his  schemes  and  took  the  consequences  with- 
out a  murmur  during  their  long  married  life  of  46 
years. 

§  10.  Full  of  new  ideas  about  farming  Pestalozzi  now 
thought  he  saw  his  way  to  making  a  fortune.  Pie  took 
some  poor  land  near  Birr  not  far  from  Zurich,  and  per- 
suaded a  banking  firm  to  advance  money  with  which  he 
proposed  to  cultivate  vegetables  and  madder.  In  Sep- 
tember,  1769,  he  was  married,  and  six  months  later  the 


296  PESTALOZZL 

P.  turns  to  education. 

pair  settled  in  a  new  house,  "  Neuhof,"  which  Pestalozzi 
had  built  on  his  land. 

§  II.  But  in  spite  of  his  excellent  ideas  and  great  in- 
dustry, his  speculation  failed.  The  bankers  soon  withdrevr 
their  money.  Pestalozzi  was  not  cautious  enough  for  them. 
However,  his  wife's  friends  prevented  an  immediate  collapse. 

§  12.  But  before  he  had  any  reason  to  doubt  the  success 
of  his  speculation  Pestalozzi  had  begun  to  reproach  himself 
with  being  engrossed  by  it.  What  had  become  of  all  his 
thoughts  for  the  people  ?  Was  he  not  spending  his  strength 
entirely  to  gain  the  prosperity  of  himself  and  his  house- 
hold ?  These  thoughts  came  to  him  with  all  the  more  force 
when  a  son  was  born  to  him ;  and  at  this  time  they  natu- 
rally connected  themselves  with  education.  He  had  now 
seen  a  good  deal  of  the  degraded  state  of  the  peasantry. 
How  were  they  to  be  raised  out  of  it  ? 

§  13.  To  Pestalozzi  there  seemed  one  answer  and  one 
only.  This  was  by  education.  fTo  many  people  in  the  present 
day  it  might  seem  that  "  education,"  when  quite  successful, 
would  qualify  labourers  to  become  clerks.  This  was  not  the 
notion  of  Pestalozzi.  Rousseau  had  completely  freed  him 
from  bondage  to  the  Renascence,  and  education  did  not 
mean  to  him  a  training  in  the  use  of  books.  He  looked 
at  the  children  of  the  lowest  class  of  the  peasants  and  asked 
himself  what  they  needed  to  raise  them.  Knowledge  would 
not  do  it.j  "  The  thing  was  not  that  they  should  know  what 
they  did  not  know,  but  that  they  should  behave  as  they  did 
not  behave  "  {supra,  p.  169) ;  and  the  road  to  right  action 
lay  through  right  feeling.  If  they  could  be  made  conscious 
that  they  were  loved  and  cared  for,  their  hearts  would  open 
and  give  back  love  and  respect  in  return.  More  than  this, 
they  must  be  taught  not  only  to  respect  their  elders  but  also 


PESTALOZZI.  297 

Neuhof  filled  with  children. 

themsielves.  They  must  be  taught  to  help  themselves  and 
contribute  to  their  own  maintenance.  So  Pestalozzi  resolved 
to  take  into  his  own  house  some  of  the  very  poorest  children, 
to  bring  them  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  love,  and  to  instruct 
them  in  field-work  and  spinning  which  would  soon  partly 
(as  Pestalozzi  hoped,  wholly)  pay  for  their  keep.  Thus,  just 
at  the  time  when  the  experiment  for  himself  failed  he  began 
for  others  an  experiment  that  seemed  likely  to  add  indefi- 
nitely to  his  difficulties. 

§  14.  In  the  winter  of  1774  the  first  children  were  taken 
into  Neuhof,  The  consequences  to  his  wife  and  to  his  little 
son  only  four  years  old  might  have  vanquished  the  courage 
of  a  less  ardent  philanthropist.  "  Our  position  entailed  much 
suffering  on  my  wife ;"  he  writes,  "  but  nothing  could  shake 
us  in  our  resolve  to  devote  our  time,  strength  and  remaining 
fortune  to  the  simplification  of  the  instruction  and  domestic 
education  of  the  people." 

§  15.  These  children,  at  first  not  more  than  20  in  numbei, 
Pestalozzi  treated  as  his  own.  They  worked  with  him  in 
the  summer  in  the  garden  and  fields,  in  winter  in  the  house. 
Very  little  time  was  given  to  separate  lessons,  the  children 
often  learning  while  they  worked  with  their  hands.  ^Pestalozzi 
held  that  talking  should  come  before  reading  and  writing ; 
and  he  practised  them  in  conversation  on  subjects  taken 
from  their  every  day  life.  They  also  repeated  passages  from 
the  Bible  till  they  knew  them  by  heart.) 

§  16.  In  a  few  months,  as  we  are  told,  the  appearance  of 
these  poor  little  creatures  had  entirely  changed  ;  though  fed 
only  on  bread  and  vegetables  they  looked  strong  and  hearty, 
and  their  faces  gained  an  expression  of  cheerfulness,  frank- 
ness and  intelligence  which  till  then  had  been  totally 
wanting.     They  made  good  progress  with  their  manual  work 


298  PESTALOZZI. 


Appeal  for  the  new  Institution. 


as  well  as  with  the  associated  lessons,  and  took  pleasure  in 
both.  In  all  they  said  and  did,  they  seemed  to  show  their 
consciousness  of  their  benefactor's  kind  care  of  them. 

§  17,  This  experiment  naturally  drew  much  attention  to  it, 
and  when  it  had  gone  on  over  a  year  Pestalozzi  was  induced 
by  his  friend  Iselin  of  Basel  to  insert  in  the  Ephemerides  (a 
paper  of  which  Iselin  was  editor),  an  "  appeal  ...  for 
an  institution  intended  to  provide  education  and  work  for 
poor  country  children."  In  this  appeal  Pestalozzi  narrates 
his  experience.  "  I  have  proved,"  says  he,  "  that  it  is  not 
regular  work  that  stops  the  development  of  so  many  poor 
children,  but  the  turmoil  and  irregularity  of  their  lives,  the 
privations  they  endure,  the  excesses  they  indulge  in  when 
opportunity  offers,  the  wild  rebellious  passions  so  seldom 
restrained,  and  the  hopelessness  to  which  they  are  so  often 
a  prey.  I  have  proved  that  children  after  having  lost  health, 
strength  and  courage  in  a  life  of  idleness  and  mendicity  have, 
when  once  set  to  regular  work  quickly  recovered  their  health 
and  spirits  and  grown  rapidly.  I  have  found  that  when 
taken  out  of  their  abject  condition  they  soon  become  kindly, 
trustful  and  sympathetic;  that  even  the  most  degraded  of  them 
are  touched  by  kindness,  and  that  the  eyes  of  the  child  who 
has  been  steeped  in  misery,  grow  bright  with  pleasure  and 
surprise,  when,  after  years  of  hardship,  he  sees  a  gentle 
friendly  hand  stretched  out  to  help  him ;  and  I  am  convinced 
that  when  a  child's  heart  has  been  touched  the  consequences 
7till  be  great  for  his  development  and  entire  moral  character.^ 

Pestalozzi  therefore  would  have  the  very  poorest  children 
brought  up  in  private  establishments  where  agriculture  and 
industry  were  combined,  and  where  they  would  learn  to  work 
steadily  and  carefully  with  their  hands,  the  chief  part  of 
their  time  being  devoted  to  this  manual  work,  and  their  in 


PESTALOZZI.  299 


Bankruptcy.    The  children  sent  away. 

struction  and  education  being  associated  with  it.  And  he 
asks  for  support  in  greatly  increasing  the  estabUshment  he 
has  already  begun. 

§  18.  Encouragedbythesupporthe  received  and  still  more 
by  his  love  for  the  children  and  his  own  too  sanguine  disposi- 
tion Pestalozzi  enlarged  his  undertaking.  The  consequence 
was  bankruptcy.  Several  causes  conspired  to  bring  about 
this  result.  Whatever  he  might  do  for  the  children,  he  could 
not  educate  the  parents,  and  these  were  many  of  them  beggars 
with  the  ordinary  vices  of  their  class.  With  the  usual  discern- 
ment of  such  people  they  soon  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
Pestalozzi  was  making  a  fortune  out  of  their  children's  labour; 
so  they  haunted  Neuhof,  treated  Pestalozzi  with  the  greatest 
insolence,  and  often  induced  their  children  to  run  away  in  their 
new  clothes.  This  would  account  for  much,  but  there  was 
another  cause  of  failure  that  accounted  for  a  great  deal  more. 
This  was  Peslalozzi's  extreme  incapacity  as  an  administrator. 
Even  his  industrial  experiment  he  carried  on  in  such  a  way  that 
it  proved  a  source  of  expense  rather  than  of  profit.  He  says 
himself,  that,  contrary  to  his  own  principles,  which  should 
have  led  him  to  begin  at  the  beginning  and  lay  a  good 
foundation  in  teaching,  he  put  the  children  to  work  that  was 
too  difficult  for  them,  wanted  them  to  spin  fine  thread  before  ] 
their  hands  got  steadiness  and  skill  by  exercise  on  the  !- 
coarser  kind,  and  to  manufacture  muslin  before  they  could  / 
turn  out  well-made  cotton  goods.  "  Before  I  was  aware  of 
it,"  he  adds,"  I  was  deeply  involved  in  debt,  and  the  greater 
part  of  my  dear  wife's  property  and  expectations  had,  as  it 
were,  in  an  instant  gone  up  in  smoke." 

§  19,  The  precise  arrangement  made  with  the  creditors 
we  do  not  know.  The  bare  facts  remain  that  the  children 
were  sent  away,  and  that  the  land  was  let  for  the  creditors' 


300  PESTALOZZI. 


Eighteen  years  of  poverty  and  distress. 

benefit ;  but  Pestalozzi  remained  in  the  house.  This  was 
settled  in  1780. 

§  20.  We  have  now  come  to  the  most  gloomy  period  in 
Pestalozzi's  history,  a  period  of  eighteen  years,  and  those 
the  best  years  in  a  man's  life,  which  Pestalozzi  spent  in  great 
distress  from  poverty  without  and  doubt  and  despondency 
within.  When  he  got  into  difficulties,  his  friends,  he  tells 
us,  loved  him  without  hope :  "  in  the  whole  surrounding 
district  it  was  everywhere  said  that  I  was  a  lost  man,  that 
nothing  more  could  be  done  for  me."  "  In  his  only  too 
elegant  country  house,"  we  are  told,  "he  often  wanted 
money,  bread,  fuel,  to  protect  himself  against  hunger  and 
cold."  "  Eighteen  years  ! — what  a  time  for  a  soul  like  his 
to  wait !  History  passes  lightly  over  such  a  period.  Ten, 
twenty,  thirty  years — it  xnakes  but  a  cipher  difference  if 
nothing  great  happens  in  them.  But  with  what  agony  must 
he  have  seen  day  after  day,  year  after  year  gliding  by,  who 
in  his  fervent  soul  longed  to  labour  for  the  good  of  mankind 
and  yet  looked  in  vain  for  the  opportunity  !"  (Palmer.) 

§  21.  But  he  who  was  always  ready  to  sacrifice  himself  for 
others  now  found  someone,  and  that  a  stranger,  ready  to 
make  a  great  sacrifice  for  him.  A  servant,  named  Elizabeth 
Naef,  heard  of  the  disaster  and  distress  at  Neuhof,  and  her 
master  having  just  died  she  resolved  to  go  to  the  rescue.  At 
first  Pestalozzi  refused  her  help.  He  did  not  wish  her  to 
share  the  poverty  of  his  household,  and  he  felt  himself  out  of 
sympathy  with  her  "evangehcal"  form  of  piety.  But 
Elizabeth  declared  she  had  come  to  stay,  and  when 
Pestalozzi  found  he  could  not  shake  her  determination  he 
consented,  saying,  "  Well,  you  will  find  after  all  that  God 
is  in  our  house  also." 

§  22.  To  this  pious  sensible  but  illiterate  peasant  woman 


PESTALOZZI.  301 


Gertrude  to  the  rescue.    P.'s  religion. 

Pestalozzj  was  fond  of  tracing  many  of  his  ideas.  She  was 
the  original  of  his  Gertrude,  and  it  was  of  her  he  wrote : 
"  God's  sun  pursues  its  path  from  morning  to  evening ;  yet 
your  eye  detects  no  movement,  your  ear  no  sound.  Even 
when  it  goes  down,  you  know  that  it  will  rise  again  and 
continue  to  ripen  the  fruits  of  the  earth.  Extreme  as  it  may 
seem,  I  am  not  ashamed  to  say  that  this  is  an  image  of 
Gertrude  as  of  every  woman  who  makes  her  house  a  temple 
of  the  living  God  and  wins  heaven  for  her  husband  and 
children."  (^Leonard  and  Gertrude).  She  was  invaluable  at 
Neuhof  and  restored  comfort  tothe  household.  In  after  years 
she  managed  the  estabhshment  at  Yverdun  and  married 
one  of  the  Kriisis  who  were  Pestalozzi's  assistants. 

§  23.  Writing  of  the  gloomy  years  at  Neuhof  Pestalozzi 
afterwards  said ;  "  My  head  was  grey,  yet  I  was  still  a  child. 
With  a  heart  ij^-which  all  the  foundations  of  life  were  shaken, 
I  still  pursued  in  those  stormy  times  my  favourite  object, 
but  my  way  was  one  of  prejudice,  of  passion  and  of 
error."  But  with  Pestalozzi  self-depreciation  had  "almost 
grown  the  habit  of  his  soul,"  and  in  his  writings  at  Neuhof 
at  this  period  we  find  no  traces  of  this  prejudice,  passion  and 
error  from  which  he  supposes  himself  to  have  suffered.  He 
certa;nly  did  not  abandon  his  love  of  humanity ;  and  in 
his  sacrifice  for  it  he  sought  a  religious  basis.  In  these 
Neuhof  days  he  wrote  :  "  Christ  teaches  us  by  His  example 
and  doctrine  to  sacrifice  not  only  our  possessions  but  our- 
selves foi  the  good  of  others,  and  shews  us  that  nothmg  we 
have  received  is  absolutely  ours  but  is  merely  entrusted  to 
us  by  God  to  be  piously  employed  in  the  service  of  charity." 
(Quot^ed  by  Guimps.  R's  trans.  72.)  Whatever  were  his 
doubts  and  difficulties,  he  never  swerved  from  pursuing  the 
great    object    of    his    life,   and   nothing  could    cloud  his 


302  PESTALOZZI. 


P.  turns  author.    "  E.  H.  of  Hermit." 

mind  as  to  the  true  method  of  attaining  that  object.  As  he 
afterwards  wrote  to  Gessner  (  Wie  Gertrud  u.s.w.),  "  Even 
while  I  was  the  sport  of  men  who  condemned  me  I  never 
lost  sight  for  a  moment  of  the  object  I  had  in  view,  wliich 
was  the  removal  of  the  causes  of  the  misery  that  I  saw  on 
all  sides  of  me.  My  strength  too  kept  on  increasing,  and  my 
own  misfortunes  taught  me  valuable  truths.  I  knew  the 
people  as  no  one  else  did.  What  deceived  no  one  else 
always  deceived  me,  but  what  deceived  everybody  else 
deceived  me  no  longer.  .  .  My  own  sufferings  have 
enabled  me  to  understand  the  sufferings  of  the  people  and 
their  causes  as  no  man  without  suffering  can  understand 
them.  I  suffered  what  the  people  suffered  and  saw  them  as 
no  one  else  saw  them ;  and  strange  as  it  may  seem,  I  was 
never  more  profoundly  convinced  of  the  fundamental  truths 
on  which  I  had  based  my  undertaking  thatt  when  I  saw 
that  I  had  failed."     (R's.  Guimps  74.) 

§  24.  Pestalozzi  still  had  a  few  friends  who  did  not 
despise  the  dreamer  of  dreams.  Among  them  was  the 
editor  of  the  Ephemerides,  IseHn.  This  friend  encouraged 
him  to  write,  and  there  soon  appeared  in  the  Ephe7nerides 
a  series  of  reflexions  under  the  title  of  *'  The  Evening  Hour 
of  a  Hermit."  Not  many  editors  would  have  printed  these 
aphorisms,  and  they  attracted  little  or  no  attention  at  the 
time,  but  they  have  proved  worth  attending  to.  "The 
fruit  of  Pestalozsi's  past  years,  they  are,"  says  Raumer, 
"  at  the  same  time  the  seed-corn  of  the  years  that  were  to 
come,  the  plan  and  key  to  his  action  in  pedagogy.  .  . 
The  drawing  of  the  architect  of  genius  contains  his  work, 
even  though  the  architect  himself  has  not  skill  enough  to 
carry  out  his  own  design."     (Quoted  by  Otto  Fischer).* 

•  In  these  aphorisms  Pestalozzi  states  the  main  principles  at  work  in 


PESTALOZZI.  303 


P.'s  belief. 


§  25.  What  was  the  connexion  between  Pestalozzi's 
Oelief  at  this  season  and  complete  belief  in  dogmatic 
Christianity  ?  The  question  is  one  that  will  always  be  asked 
and  can  never,  I  think,  be  fully  answered.     In  the  days 

nis  own  mind  ;  but  this  bare  statement  is  not  well  suited  to  communi- 
cate these  principles  to  the  minds  of  others.  For  most  readers  the 
iphorisms  have  as  little  attraction  as  the  enunciations,  say,  of  a  book 
of  Euclid  would  have  for  those  who  knew  no  geometry.  But  as  his 
future  life  was  guided  by  the  principles  he  has  formulated  in  this  paper 
it  seems  necessary  for  us  to  bear  some  of  these  in  mind. 

What  he  mainly  insists  upon  is  that  all  wise  guidance  must  proceed 
from  a  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  the  creature  to  be  guided  ;  further 
that  there  is  a  simple  wisdom  which  must  direct  the  course  of  all  men. 
"  The  path  of  Nature,"  says  he,  "  which  brings  out  the  powers  of  men 
must  be  open  and  plain  ;  and  human  education  to  true  peace-giving 
wisdom  must  be  simple  and  availaV)le  for  all.  Nature  brings  out  all 
men's  powers  by  practice,  and  their  increase  springs  from  use."  The 
powers  of  children  should  be  strengthened  by  exercise  on  what  is  close 
at  hand ;  and  this  should  be  done  without  hardness  or  pressure.  A 
forced  and  rigid  sequence  in  instruction  is  not  Nature's  method,  says  he  : 
this  would  make  men  one-sided,  and  truth  would  not  penetrate  freely 
and  softly  into  their  whole  being.  The  pure  feeling  for  truth  grows  in 
a  small  area  ;  and  human  wisdom  must  be  grounded  on  a  perception  of 
our  closest  relationshipsj  and  rnust  show  itself  in  skilled  management  of 
our  nearest  concerns.  Everything  we  do  against  our  consciousness  of 
right  weakens  our  perception  of  truth  and  disturbs  the  purity  of  our 
fundamental  conceptions  and  experiences.  On  this  account  all  wisdom 
of  man  rests  in  the  strength  of  a  good  heart  that  follows  after  truth,  and  all 
the  blessing  of  man  in  the  sense  of  simplicity  and  innocence.  Peace  of 
mind  must  be  the  outcom  e  of  right  training.  To  get  out  of  his  surround- 
ings all  he  needs  for  life  and  enjoyment,  to  be  patient,  painstaking,  and  in 
every  difficulty  trustful  in  the  love  of  the  Heavenly  Father,  this  comes 
of  a  man's  true  education  to  wisdom.  Nothing  concerns  the  human 
race  so  closely  and  intimately  as — God.  "  God  a^  Father  of  thy  house — 
hold,  as  source  of  thy  blessing — God  as  thy  Father  ;  in  this  belief  thou 
findest  rest  and  strength  and  wisdom,  which  no  violence  nor  the  grave 
itself  can  overthrow. "     Belief  in  God  which  is  a  part  of  our  nature,  like 


304  PESTALOZZI. 


The  "Hermit"  a  Christian. 


preceding  the  French  Revolution  it  was  a  proof  of  wisdom 
to  "  Cleave  ever  to  the  sunnier  side  of  doubt,  and  cling  lo 
Faith,"  even  though  the  Faith  were  "  beyond  the  forms  "  f 
Faith  "  (see  Tennyson's  Anciefit  Sage).  But  Pestalozzi  did 
far  more  than  this.  He  traced  all  virtue  and  strength  in 
the  people  to  belief  in  the  Fatherhood  of  God ;  and  he 
saw  in  unbelief  the  severance  of  all  the  bonds  of  society. 
The  "  Hermit "  does  not  indeed  use  the  phrases  common 
among  "  evangelical  "  Christians,  but  that  he  was  indeed  a 
Christian  is  established  not  only  by  the  general  tone  of  his 
aphorisms  but  still  more  clearly  by  his  last  words  :  "  The 
Man  of  God,  who  with  his  sufferings  and  death  has  restored 
to  humanity  the  lost  feeling  of  the  child's  disposition  towards 
God  is  the  Redeemer  of  the  world ;  he  is  the  sacrificed 
Priest  of  the  Lord ;  he  is  the  Mediator  between  God  and 
God-forgetting  mankind.  His  teaching  is  pure  justice, 
educating  philosophy  of  the  people  ;  it  is  the  revelation  of 
God  the  Father  to  the  lost  race  of  his  children." 

§  26.  The  "  Evening  Hour"  remaining  almost  unnoticed, 
Pestalozzi's  friends  urged  him  to  write  something  in  a  more 
popular  form.  So  he  set  to  work  on  a  tale  which  should 
depict  the  life  of  the  peasantry  and  sRew  the  causes  of  their 

the  sense  of  right  and  wrong  and  the  feeling  we  can  never  qiier.ch  of 
what  is  just  and  unjust,  must  be  made  the  foundation  in  educating  the 
human  race.  The  subject  of  that  belief  is  that  God  is  the  Father  of 
men,  men  are  the  children  of  God.  To  this  divine  relationship  Pes- 
talozzi refers  all  human  relationships  as  those  of  parent  and  child,  of 
ruler  and  subject.  The  priest  is  appointed  to  declare  the  fatherhood  oi 
God  and  the  brotherhood  of  men. 

The  only  text  I  have  seen  is  that  reprinted  by  Raumer  [Gesch.  d. 
Pad.).  From  Otto  Fischer  ( Wichtigste  Pddagogen),  I  learn  that  this  is 
the  edition  of  1807,  which  differs,  at  least  by  omission,  from  the  original 
of  178a 


PESTALOZZI.  305 


Success  of  "  Leonard  and  Gertrude." 

degradation  and  the  cure.  With  extraordinary  rapidity  he 
wrote  between  the  hnes  of  an  old  account  book  the  first 
part  of  his  "  Leonard  and  Gertrude."  The  book,  which  was 
complete  in  itself,  and  through  the  good  offices  of  Iselin  (of 
the  Ephemerides\  soon  found  a  publisher,  suddenly  sprang 
into  immense  popularity,  a  popularity  of  which  nothing  but 
the  "  continuations  "  could  ever  have  deprived  it.  In  the 
works  of  a  great  artist  we  see  natural  objects  represented 
with  perfect  fidelity  and  yet  with  a  life  breathed  into  them 
by  genius,  which  is  wanting  or  at  least  is  not  visible  to 
common  eyes  in  the  originals.  Just  so  do  we  find  Swiss 
peasant  life  depicted  by  Pestalozzi.  The  delineation  is 
evidently  true  to  nature ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  shows 
Nature  as  she  reveals  herself  to  genius.  But  for  this  work 
something  more  than  genius  was  necessary,  viz.,  sympathy 
and  love.  In  the  preface  to  the  first  edition,  he  says,  "  In 
that  which  I  here  relate,  and  which  I  have,  for  the  most 
part,  seen  and  heard  myself  in  the  course  of  an  active  life, 
I  have  taken  care  not  once  to  add  my  own  opinion  to  what 
I  saw  and  heard  the  people  themselves  saying,  feelings 
believing,  judging,  and  attempting."  In  a  later  edition 
(1800)  he  says,  "I  desired  nothing  then,  and  I  desire 
nothing  else  now,  as  the  object  of  my  life,  but  the  welfare 
of  the  people,  whom  I  love,  and  whom  I  feel  to  be  miserable 
as  few  feel  them  to  be  miserable,  because  I  have  with  them 
borne  their  sufferings  as  few  have  borne  them." 

§  27.  Wherever  German  was  read  this  book  excited  vast 
interest,  and  though  it  seemed  to  most  people  only  a  good 
tale,  it  met  with  some  more  discerning  readers.  The  Bern 
Agricultural  Society  sent  the  author  their  thanks  and  a  gold 
medal,  and  Pestalozzi  was  at  once  recognised  as  a  man  who 
understood  the  peasantry  and  had  good  ideas  for  raising 


306  PESTALOZZI. 

Gertrude's  patience  tried. 

them.  The  book  is  and  must  remain  a  classic,  but 
Pestalozzi  in  his  zeal  to  spread  the  truth  added  again  and 
again  "continuations,"  and  these  became  less  and  less 
popular  in  the  method  of  exposition,* 

§  28.  Here  and  there  we  get  glimpses  of  the  trials 
Pestalozzi  had  gone  through  in  his  industrial  experiment. 
"  The  love  and  patience,"  he  writes,  "  with  which  Gertrude 
bore  with  the  disorderly  and  untrained  little  ones  was  almost 
past  belief.  Their  eyes  were  often  anywhere  but  on  their 
yarn,  so  that  this  would  now  be  too  thick,  and  now  too  thin. 
When  they  had  spoiled  it,  they  would  watch  for  a  moment 
when  Gertrude  was  not  looking,  and  throw  it  out  of  the 
window  by  the  handful,  until  they  found  that  she  dis- 
covered the  trick  when  she  weighed  their  work  at  night." 
(E.  C's.  trans.,  p.  122.)  And  in  this  connexion  Pestalozzi 
preached  his  doctrine  of  perfect  attainment.  "'What  you 
can't  do  blindfold,'"  said  Harry,  "  *  you  can't  do  at  all.'"    (tk) 

§  29.  "  Gertrude,"  we  are  told,  *' seemed  quite  unable  to 
explain  her  method  in  words ;"  and  here  no  doubt  Pestalozzi 
was  speaking  of  himself ;  but  like  Gertrude  he  "  would  let 
fall  some  significant  remark  which  went  to  the  root  of  the 
whole  matter  of  education."     As  an  instance  we  may  take 

*  There  are  now  four  parts,  first  published  respectively  in  1781, 1783. 
1785,  and  1787  (O.  Fischer).  The  English  translation  in  two  small 
vols.  (1825)  ends  with  the  First  Part,  but  Miss  Eva  Channing  has 
recently  sought  to  weld  the  four  parts  into  one  (Boston,  U.S. — D.  C. 
Heath  &  Co.),  and  in  this  form  the  book  seems  to  me  not  only  very 
instructive  but  very  entertaining  also.  Not  many  readers  who  look 
into  it  will  fail  to  reach  the  end,  and  few  are  the  books  connected  with 
education  of  which  this  could  prudently  be  asserted.  "All  good 
teachers  should  read  it  with  care,"  says  Stanley  Hall  in  his  Introduc- 
tion, and  if  they  thus  read  it  and  catch  anything  of  the  spirit  of  Pesta' 
lozzi  both  they  and  their  pupils  will  have  reason  to  rejoice. 


PESTALOZZI.  307 

Being  and  doing  before  knowing. 

what  Gertrude  said  to  the  schoolmaster :  "  You  should  do 
for  the  children  what  their  parents  fail  to  do  for  them.  The 
reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic  are  not  after  all  what  they 
most  need.  It  is  all  well  and  good  for  them  to  learn  some- 
thing, but  the  really  important  thing  for  them  is  to  be  some- 
thing." When  this  truth  is  fully  realized  by  teachers  and 
school  managers  there  will  be  some  hope  for  national 
education. 

§  30.  "  Although  Gertrude  exerted  herself  to  develop  very 
early  the  manual  dexterity  of  her  children,  she  was  in  no 
haste  for  them  to  learn  to  read  and  write ;  but  she  took 
pains  to  teach  them  early  how  to  speak  :  for,  as  she  said, 
'  Of  what  use  is  it  for  a  person  to  be  able  to  read  and 
write  if  he  cannot  speak,  since  reading  and  writing  are  only 
an  artificial  sort  of  speech,'  ....  She  did  not  adopt  the 
tone  of  an  instructor  towards  the  children  ....  and  her 
verbal  instruction  seemed  to  vanish  in  the  spirit  of  her  real 
activity,  in  which  it  always  had  its  source.  The  result  of 
her  system  was  that  each  child  was'  skilful,  intelligent,  and 
active  to  the  full  extent  that  its  age  and  development 
allowed."    {lb.  p.  130.) 

§  31.  In  this  book  we  see  that  knowledge  is  treated  as 
valueless  unless  it  has  a  basis  in  action.  "The  pastor  was 
soon  convinced  that  all  verbal  iristruction  in  so  far  as  it  aims 
at  true  human  wisdom  and  at  the  highest  goal  of  this 
wisdom,  true  religion,  ought  to  be  subordinated  to  a  con- 
stant training  in  practical  domestic  labour So  he 

strove  to  lead  the  children  without  many  words  to  a  quiet 
industrious  life,  and  thus  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a  silent 
worship  of  God  and  love  of  humanity.  To  this  end  he 
connected  every  word  of  his  brief  religious  teachings  with 
their  actual  every-day  experience,  so  that  when  he  spoke  of 


308  PESTALOZZI. 


P.'s  severity.    Women  Commissioners. 

God  and  eternity,  it  seemed  to  them  as  if  he  were  speaking 
of  father  and  mother,  house  and  home;  in  short  of  the 
things  with  which  they  were  most  familiar"  (p.  156).  Thus 
he  built  on  the  foundation  laid  by  the  schoolmaster,  who 
"  cared  for  the  children's  heads  as  he  did  for  their  hearts, 
and  demanded  that  whatever  entered  them  should  be  plain 
and  clear  as  the  silent  moon  in  the  sky.  To  insure  this  he 
taught  them  to  see  and  hear  with  accuracy,  and  cultivated 
their  powers  of  attention  "  (p.  157). 

§  32.  With  all  his  love  for  the  children,  an  element  of 
severity  was  not  wanting.  Pestalozzi  maintained  that  "  love 
was  only  useful  in  the  education  of  men  when  in  con- 
junction with  fear :  for  they  must  learn  to  root  out  thorns 
and  thistles,  which  they  never  do  of  their  own  accord,  but 
only  under  compulsion  and  in  consequence  of  training " 

(P-  157). 

§  33.  Just  at  the  end  of  the  book  "  the  Duke"  appoints 
a  commission  to  report  on  the  success  of  the  Bonal  experi- 
ment, and  Pestalozzi  makes  him  give  the  following  order : 
"  To  insure  thoroughness  there  must  be  among  the  ex- 
aminers men  skilled  in  law  and  finance,  merchants,  clergy- 
men, government  officials,  schoolmasters,  and  physicians, 
besides  women  of  different  ranks  and  conditions  of  Ife  who 
'Shall  view  the  matter  with  their  woman's  eyes  and  be  sure 
there  is  nothing  visionary  in  the  background  "  {p.  180).  In 
this  respect  Pestalozzi  is  in  advance  of  us  still.  No  woman 
has  yet  sat  on  an  educational  commission. 

§  34.  Thus  we  find  Pestalozzi  at  the  age  of  thirty-five 
turning  author,  and  for  the  next  six  or  seven  years  he  worked 
indefatigably  with  his  pen.  C  Most  men  of  genius  have  some 
leading  purpose  which  unites  their  varied  activities,  and 
this  was  specially  true  of  Pestalozzi.     He  never  lost  sight 


PESTALOZZI.  309 


P.'s  seven  years  of  authorship. 

of  his  one  object,  which  was  the  elevation  of  the  people  ; 
and  this  he  held  to  be  attainable  only  by  means  of  education 
properly  so  called.^  The  success  of  the  first  part  of  Leonard 
and  Gertrude  he  now  endeavoured  to  turn  to  account  in 
spreading  true  ideas  of  education.  With  this  intent  he 
published  Christopher  and  Eliza  :  My  Second  Book  for  the 
People  (1782),  which  was  a  kind  of  commentary  on  Leonard 
and  Gertrude.  But  the  public  wished  to  be  amused,  not 
taught ;  and  the  book  was  a  failure.  He  was  thus  driven 
into  the  attempt  already  mentioned  to  catch  the  public  ear 
by  continuing  Leonard  and  Gertrude,  thus  endangering  his 
first  and,  as  it  proved,  his  only  great  success  in  literature. 

§  35.  To  gain  circulation  for  his  ideas  he  also  started  a 
weekly  paper  called  the  Swiss  Journal,  and  issued  it  regu- 
larly throughout  the  year  1782;  but  the  subscribers  were 
so  few  that  he  was  then  obliged  to  give  it  up.  I  have  not 
the  smallest  doubt  that  it  was,  as  Guimps  says,  full  of  wisdom, 
but  not  the  kind  of  wisdom  that  readers  of  periodicals  are 
likely  to  care  for.* 

*  In  the  pages  of  this  Journal  Pestalozzi  taught  that  it  was  "  the 
domestic  virtues  which  determine  the  happiness  of  a  nation."  Again 
he  says  :  "  On  the  throne  and  in  the  cottage  man  has  equal  need  of 
religion,  and  becomes  the  most  wretched  being  on  the  earth  if  he  forget 
his  God."  "  The  child  at  his  mother's  breast  is  weaker  and  more 
dependent  than  any  creature  on  earth,  and  yet  he  already  feels  the  first 
moral  impressions  of  love  and  gratitude."  ^^  Morality  is  nothing 
bui  a  result  of  the  development  of  the  first  sentiments  of  love  and  grati- 
tude felt  by  the  infant.  The  first  development  of  the  child's  powers 
should  come  from  his  participation  in  the  work  of  his  home  ;  for  this 
work  is  what  his  parents  understand  best,  what  most  absorbs  their 
attention,  and  what  they  can  best  teach.  But  even  if  this  were  not  so, 
work  undertaken  to  supply  real  needs  would  be  just  as  truly  the  surest 
foundation  of  a  good  education.  To  engage  the  attention  of  the  child, 
to  exercise  his  judgment,  to  raise  his  heart  to  noble  sentiments,  these  J 


310  PESTALOZZI. 


"  Citizen  of  French  Republic."     Doubts. 

§  36.  In  the  Swiss  Journal  we  get  a  hint  of  the  analogy 
between  the  development  of  the  plant  and  of  the  man. 
This  analogy,  often  as  it  had  been  observed  before,  was 
never  before  so  fruitful  as  it  became  in  the  hands  of 
Pestalozzi  and  Froebel.  The  passage  quoted  by  Guimps  is 
this:  "Teach  me,  summer  day,  that  man  formed  from  the 
dust  of  the  earth,  grows  and  ripens  like  the  plant  rooted  in 
the  soil." 

§  37.  Between  the  close  of  the  year  1787  and  1797 
Pestalozzi  did  not  publish  anything.  Though  he  had 
become  famous,  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  greatest 
men  in  Germany,  such  as  Goethe,  Wieland,  Herder,-  and 
Fichte,  and  had  been  declared  a  "  Citizen  of  the  French 
Republic,"  together  with  Bentham,  Tom  Payne,  Wilberforce, 
Clarkson,  Washington,  Madison,  Klopstock,  Kozciusko,  &c., 
he  was  nearly  starving,  and,  naturally  enough  in  that  state 
of  affairs  both  private  and  public,  he  was  in  great  des- 
pondency. As  we  have  seen,  his  whole  life  and  work  were 
founded  on  religion  and  on  the  only  religion  possible  for  us, 
the  Christian  religion  ;  but  carried  away  by  his  political 
radicalism  he  seems  at  this  time  to  have  doubted  whether 
Christianity  was  more  than  the  highest  human  wisdom.  In 
October,  1793,  he  wrote  to  a  friend  in  Berlin:  "I  doubt, 
not  because  I  look  on  doubt  as  the  truth,  but  because  the 
sum  of  the  impressions  of  my  life  has  driven  faith  with  its 
blessings  from  my  soul.     Thus  impelled  by  my  fate  1  see 

think  the  chief  ends  of  education  :  and  how  can  these  ends  be  reached  so 
surely  as  by  training  the  child  as  early  as  possible  in  the  various  dailyd  aties 
of  domestic  life  ?"  It  would  seem  then  that  at  this  time  Pfstalozzi  was 
for  basing  education  on  domestic  labour  and  would  teach  the  child  to 
be  useful.  But  it  is  hard  to  see  how  this  principle  could  always  he 
applied. 


PESTALOZZI.  31 J 


Waiting.     P.'s  "Inquiry." 


nothing  more  in  Christianity  but  the  purest  and  noblest 
teaching  of  the  victory  of  the  spirit  over  the  flesh,  the  one 
possible  means  of  raising  our  nature  to  its  true  nobility,  or 
in  other  words  of  establishing  the  empire  of  the  reason  over 
the  senses  by  the  development  of  the  purest  feelings  ol 
the  heart."  If  this  was  the  lowest  point  to  which  Pestalozzi's 
faith  sank  in  the  days  of  the  Revolution,  it  remained  for 
practical  purposes  higher  than  the  faith  of  most  professing 
Christians  then  and  since. 

§  38.  At  this  time  we  find  him  complaining :  "  My 
agriculture  swallows  up  all  my  time.  I  am  longing  for 
winter  with  its  leisure.  My  time  passes  like  a  shadow." 
He  was  then  forty-six  years  of  age  and  seemed  to  himself 
to  have  done  nothing. 

§  39.  Another  five  years  he  had  to  wait  before  he  found 
an  opportunity  for  action.  During  this  time,  impelled  by 
Fichte,  he  endeavoured  to  give  his  ideas  philosophic  com- 
pleteness, and  after  labouring  for  three  years  with  almost 
incredible  toil  he  published  in  1797  his  "  inquiry  into  the 
Course  of  Nature  in  the  Development  of  the  Human 
Race."  This  book  is  pronounced  even  by  his  biographer 
Guimps  to  be  "  prolix  and  obscure,"  and,  says  Pestalozzi, 
"nobody  understood  me."  But  even  in  this  book  there  was 
much  wisdom,  had  the  world  cared  to  learn  ;  but  the  world 
had  then  no  place  for  Pestalozzi,  and  as  he  says  at  the  end 
of  this  book,  "  without  even  asking  whether  the  fault  was 
his  or  another's,  it  crushed  him  with  its  iron  hammer  as  the 
mason  crushes  a  useless  stone."  He  was,  however,  not 
actually  crushed,  and  a  place  was  in  time  found  for  him. 

§  40.  The  world  might  be  pardoned  for  neglecting 
an  Inquiry  which  even  a  biographer  finds  "  prolix  and 
obscure."     But  why  could  it  see  nothing  in  another  book 


312  PESTALOZZI. 

P.'s  "  Fables." 

which  Pestalozzi  published  in  the  same  year,  "  Figures  to 
my  ABC  Book,"  or  according  to  its  later  title,  "  Fables,"  a 
series  of  apologues  as  witty  and  wise  as  those  of  Lessing.* 

§  41.  As  I  have  said  already  (supra  p.  239)  there  seems 
a  marked  distinction  between  thinkers  and  doers,  at  least 
in  education,  and  we  seldom  find  a  man  great  in  both.  But 
with  all  his  weakness  as  a  practical  man  Pestalozzi  proved 
great  both  as  a  thinker  and  a  doer.  He  not  only  thought 
out  what  should  be  done,  but  he  also  made  splendid  efforts 
to  do  it.  His  first  attempt  at  Neuhof  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
all  his  own ;  so  was  the  next  at  Stanz ;  but  afterwards  he 
had  to  work  with  others,  and  the  work  would  have  come  to 
a  standstill  if  he  had  not  gained  the  co-operation  of  the 
magistrates,   the   parents   of    the   children,  and    his    own 

*  One  of  these  I  have  already  given  {supra  p.  292),  I  will  give 
another,  not  as  liy  any  means  one  of  the  best,  but  as  a  fit  companion  to 
Rousseau's  "  two  d>ogs. " 

"26.  The  two  colts. 

L"  Two  colts  as  like  as  two  eggs,  fell  into  different  hands.  One  was 
bought  by  a  peasant  whose  only  thought  was  to  harness  it  to  his  plough 
«-v>y^  ..,as  soon  as  possible  :  this  one  turned  out  a  bad  horse.  The  other  fell  to 
^'  the  lot  of  a  man  who  by  looking  after  it  well  and  training  it  carefully, 
\  made  a  noble  steed  of  it,  strong  and  mettlesome.     Fathers  and  mothers, 

\        if  your  children's  faculties  are  not  carefully  trained  and  directed  right, 
\,     they  will  become  not  only  useless,  but  hurtful  ;  and  the  greater  the 
faculties  the  greater  the  danger." 

Compare  Rousseau  :    "Just  look  at  those  two  dogs  ;  they  are  01 
the  same  litter,  they  have  been  brought  up  and  treated  precisely  alike, 
;  they  have  never  been  separated  ;  and  yet  one  of  them  is  sharp,  lively, 
y»^  t&,K^ffectionate,  and  very  intelligent  :  the  other  is  dull,  lumpish,  surly,  and 
|4i^      nobody  could  ever  teach  him  anything.     Simply  a  difference  of  tempera- 
ment has  produced  in  them  a  difference  of  character,  just  as  a  simple 
difference  of  our  interior  organisation  produces  in  us  a  difference  of 
Blind."     N.  Heloise.     sme  P.  Lettre  iii.  ' 


PESTALOZZI.  313 

P.'s  own  principles. 

assistants.  So  he  never  again  had  the  free  hand,  or  at  least 
the  free  thought  which  bore  such  good  fruit  in  his  enforced 
cessation  from  practice  in  the  years  between  1780  and  1798. 
It  is  well  then  to  ask,  as  his  biographer  Guimps  has  asked, 
what  was  the  main  outcome  of  Pestalozzi's  tliought  before 
he  plunged  into  action  a  second  time  in  1798. 

§  42/Pestalozzi  set  himself  to  find  a  means  of  rescuing 
the  people  from  their  poverty  and  degradation.  This  he 
held  would  last  as  long  as  their  moral  and  intellectual 
poverty  lasted ;  so  there  was  no  hope  except  in  an  education 
that  should  make  them  better  and  more  intelligentJ  In 
studying  the  children  even  of  the  most  degraded  parents  he 
found  the  seeds,  as  it  were,  of  a  wealth  of  faculties,  senti- 
ments, tastes,  and  capabilities,  which,  if  developed,  might 
make  them  reasonable  and  upright  human  beings.  But 
what  was  called  education  did  nothing  of  the  kind.  Instead 
of  developing  the  noblest  part  of  the  child's  nature  it 
neglected  this  entirely,  and  bringing  to  the  child  the  know- 
ledge, ideas,  and  feelings  of  others,  it  tried  to  make  him 
"  learn  "  them.  So  "  education  "  did  little  beyond  stifling 
the  child's  individuality  under  a  mass  of  borrowed  ideas. 
The  schoolmaster  worked,  as  it  were,  from  without  to  within. 
This  Pestalozzi  would  change,  and  make  education  begin  in 
the  child  and  work  from  within  outwards.  Acting  on  this 
principle  he  sought  for  some  means  of  developing  the 
child's  inborn  faculties,  and  he  found  as  he  says  :  "  Nature 
develops  all  the  powers  of  humanity  by  exercising  them  ; 
they  increase  with  use."  {Evening  Hour,  Aph.  22.)  No 
means  can  be  found  of  exercising  the  higher  faculties  which 
can  be  compared  with  the  actual  relations  of  daily  life  ;  so 
Pestalozzi  declares:  "The  pure  sentiment  of  truth  and 
wisdom  is  formed  in  the  narrow  circle  of  the  relationships 


314  PESTALOZZl. 


P.'s  return  to  action. 


which  affect  us,  the  circumstances  which  suggest  our  actions, 
and  the  common  knowledge  which  we  cannot  do  without." 
And  taking  as  his  starting-point  the  needs,  desires,  and  con 
nexions  of  actual  life  he  was  naturally  led  to  associate  the 
work  of  the  body  with  that  of  the  mind,  to  develop  industry 
and  study  side  by  side,  to  combine  the  workshop  and  the 
school.  With  regard  to  instruction  he  was  never  tired  of 
insisting  on  the  importance  of  thorough  mastery  in  the 
first  elements,  and  there  was  to  be  no  advance  till  this 
mastery  was  attained.  (See  what  "  Harry "  says,  supra 
p.  306.)  "The  schools,"  he  says  {E.  H.,  No.  28),  "  hastily 
substitute  an  artificial  method  of  words  for  the  truer  method 
of  Nature  which  knows  no  hurry  but  waits.". 

§  43.  In  this  account  of  Pestalozzi's  doctrine  before  1798 
I  have  as  usual  followed  M.  Guimps.  According  to  him 
Pestalozzi  had  discovered  "  a  principle  which  settles  the  law 
of  man's  development,  and  is  the  fundamental  principle  of 
education."  This  principle  M.  Guimps  briefly  states  as 
follows  :  "  All  the  real  knowledge,  useful  powers,  and  noble 
sentiments  that  a  man  can  acquire  are  but  the  extension  of 
his  individuality  by  the  development  of  the  powers  and 
faculties  that  God  has  put  in  him,  and  by  their  assimilation 
of  the  elements  supplied  by  the  outer  world.  There  exists 
for  this  development  and  the  work  of  assimilation  a  natural 
and  necessary  order,  an  order  which  the  school  mostly  sets 
at  nought." 

§  44.  Now  we  come  to  the  period  of  Pestalozzi's  practical 
activity.  In  1798  Switzerland  was  overrun  by  the  French. 
Everything  was  remodelled  after  the  French  pattern  ;  and 
in  conformity  with  the  existing  phase  in  the  model  country 
the  government  of  Switzerland  was  declared  to  be  in  the 
hands  of  five  "  Directors."     Pestalozzi  was  a  Radical,  and 


PESTALOZZI.  315 

The  French  at  Stanz. 

he  at  once  set  to  work  to  serve  the  new  government  with 
his  pen.  The  Directors  gladly  welcomed  such  an  ally  as  the 
author  of  Leonard  and  Gertrude,  and  they  made  him 
editor  of  a  newspaper  intended  to  diffuse  the  revolutionary 
principles  among  the  people.  Naturally  enough  they  sup- 
posed that  he,  like  other  people,  "  wanted  "  something  ;  but 
vrhen  asked  what  he  wanted  he  replied  simply  that  he 
wished  to  be  a  schoolmaster.  The  Directors,  especially  Le 
Grand,  took  a  genuine  interest  in  education,  and  were  quite 
willing  that  Pestalozzi  should  be  allowed  a  free  hand  in  his 
"  new  departure."  They  therefore  agreed  to  find  the  funds 
with  which  Pestalozzi  might  open  a  new  Institution  in 
Aargau. 

§  45.  But  the  editorship  and  the  plans  for  the  new  Insti- 
tution came  to  an  abrupt  ending.  The  Catholic  cantons 
did  not  acquiesce  in  giving  up  their  local  liberties  and  being 
subjected  to  a  new  government  in  the  hands  of  men  whom 
they  regarded  as  heretics  and  even  atheists.  Consequently 
those  missionaries  of  enlightenment,  the  French  troops,  at 
once  fell  upon  them  and  slaughtered  many  without  dis- 
tinction of  age  or  sex.  The  French,  we  are  told,  did  not 
expect  to  meet  with  resistance ;  so  their  light  became 
lightning  and  struck  dead  the  stupid  people  who  could 
not  or  would  not  see.  "  Our  soldiers  "  (it  is  Michelet  who 
speaks)  "  were  ferocious  at  Stanz."  {Nos  Fils,  217).  This 
ferocity  at  Stanz  in  September,  1798,  was  in  secret  dis- 
approved of  by  the  Directors,  who  were  nominally  respoc- 
sil>le  for  it.  But  all  they  could  do  was  to  provide  in  a 
measure  for  the  "in  infirm  old  people,  the  169  orphans, 
and  237  other  children,"  who  were  left  totally  destitute. 
Le  Grand  proposed  to  Pestalozzi  that  he  should,  lor  the 
present,  give  up  his  other  plans  and  go  to  Stanz  (which  is  on 


3l6  PESTALOZZI. 


Pestalozzi  at  Stanz. 


the  Lake  of  Lucerne)  to  take  charge  of  the  orphan  and 
destitute  children.  Pestalozzi  was  not  the  man  to  refuse 
such  a  task  as  this.  He  at  once  set  out.  Some  buildings 
connected  with  an  Ursuline  convent  were,  without  the  con- 
sent of  the  nuns,  made  over  to  him.  Workmen  were 
employed  upon  them,  and  as  soon  as  a  single  room  could 
be  inhabited  Pestalozzi  received  forty  children  into  it. 
This  was  in  January,  1799,  in  the  middle  of  a  remarkably 
cold  winter. 

§  46,  Thus  under  circumstances  perhaps  less  un- 
favourable than  they  seemed  began  the  five  months'  trial  of 
pure  Pestalozzianism.  The  physical  difficulties  were  im- 
mense. At  first  Pestalozzi  and  all  the  children  were  shut 
up  day  and  night  in  a  single  room.  He  had  throughout 
no  helper  of  any  kind  but  one  female  servant,  and  he  had 
to  do  everything  for  the  children,  even  what  was  most 
menial  and  disgusting.  As  soon  as  possible  the  number 
was  increased,  and  before  long  was  nearly  eighty,  some  of 
the  children  having  to  go  out  to  sleep.  But  great  as  were 
the  material  difficulties,  those  arising  from  the  opposition  and 
hatred  of  the  people  he  came  to  succour  were  still  worse. 
To  them  he  seemed  no  philanthropist,  but  only  a  servant 
of  the  devil,  an  agent  of  the  wicked  government  which  had 
sent  its  ferocious  soldiers  and  slaughtered  the  parents  of 
these  poor  children,  a  Protestant  who  came  to  complete  the 
work  by  destroying  their  souls.  Pestalozzi,  who  was  making 
heroic  efforts  in  their  behalf,  seems  to  have  wondered  at  the 
animosity  shown  him  by  the  people  of  Stanz;  but  on 
looking  back  we  must  admit  that  in  the  circumstances  it 
was  only  natural. 

§  47,  And  yet  in  spite  of  enormous  difficulties  of  every 
kind  Pestalozzi  triumphed.      Within   the  five  months  he 


PESTALOZZI.  317 

Success  and  expulsion. 

spent  with  them  he  attached  to  him  the  hearts  of  the 
children,  and  produced  in  them  a  marvellous  physical, 
intellectual,  and  moral  change.  "If  ever  there  was  a 
miracle,"  says  Michelet,  "  it  was  here.  It  was  the  reward 
of  a  strong  faith,  of  a  wonderful  expansion  of  heart.  He 
believed,  he  willed,  he  succeeded."     {Nos  Fils  223.) 

What  was  the  great  act  of  faith  by  which  Pestalozzi 
triumphed  ?  According  to  M.  Michelet  he  stood  before 
these  vicious  and  degraded  children  and  said,  "  Man  is 
good."  Pestalozzi  does  not  tell  us  this  himself;  and  as  a 
benighted  believer  in  Christianity,  I  venture  to  differ  from 
the  enlightened  Michelet.  As  far  as  I  can  judge  from 
Pestalozzi's  own  teaching  the  source  of  his  strength  was  his 
belief  in  the  goodness  not  of  Man  but  of  God. 

§  48.  But  encouraged  and  rewarded  as  he  was  by  the 
result,  Pestalozzi  could  not  long  have  maintained  this  fearful 
exertion.  He  was  over  fifty  years  of  age,  and  he  must  soon 
have  succumbed  ;  indeed  he  was  already  spitting  blood  when 
in  June,  1799,  the  French  soldiers,  whose  action  had 
brought  him  to  Stanz,  drove  him  away  again.  Falling  back 
before  the  Austrians  they  had  need  of  a  hospital  in  Stanz, 
and  demanded  the  buildings  occupied  by  Pestalozzi  and  the 
children.  So  almost  all  the  children  had  to  be  sent  away, 
and  then  at  last  Pestalozzi  took  thought  for  his  own  health 
and  retired  to  some  baths  in  the  mountains.  But  most  of 
his  peculiarities  in  teaching  may  be  said  to  date  from  the 
experience  at  Stanz  ;  and  I  will  therefore  give  this  experience 
in  his  own  words. 

§  49.  The  following  is  the  account  given  in  his  letter  to 
his  friend  Gessner.  (I  have  in  part  availed  myself  of  Mr. 
Russell's  translation  of  Guimps,  pp.  149  i^) 


3l8  PESTALOZZI. 


At  Stanz :   P.'s  own  account. 

"  My  friend,  once  more  I  awake  from  a  dream  ;  once  more  I  see  my 
work  destroyed,  and  my  failing  strength  wasted. 

•'  But,  however  weak  and  unfortunate  my  attempt,  a  friend  of 
humanity  will  not  grudge  a  few  moments  to  consider  the  reasons  which 
convince  me  that  some  day  a  more  fortunate  posterity  will  certainly 
take  up  the  thread  of  my  hopes  at  the  place  where  it  is  now  broken.  .  .  . 

"  I  once  more  made  known,  as  well  as  I  could,  my  old  wishes  for  the 
education  of  the  people.  In  particular,  I  laid  my  whole  scheme  before 
Legrand  (then  one  of  the  Directors),  who  not  only  took  a  warm  interest 
in  it,  but  agreed  with  me  that  the  Republic  stood  in  urgent  need  of  a 
reform  of  public  education.  He  also  agreed  with  me  that  much  might 
be  done  for  the  regeneration  of  the  people  by  giving  a  certain  numl>er 
of  the  poorest  children  an  education  which  should  be  complete,  but 
which,  far  from  lifting  them  out  of  their  proper  .sphere,  would  but  attach 
them  the  more  strongly  to  it. 

"  I  limited  my  desires  to  this  one  point,  Legrand  helping  me  in 
every  possible  way.  He  even  thought  my  views  so  important  that  he 
once  said  to  me  :  '  I  shall  not  willingly  give  up  my  present  post  till 
you  have  begun  your  work. '     .     .     . 

"  It  was  my  intention  to  try  to  find  near  Zurich  or  in  Aargau  a  place 
where  I  should  be  able  to  join  industry  and  agriculture  to  the  other 
means  of  instruction,  and  so  give  my  establishment  all  the  development 
necessary  to  its  complete  success.  But  the  Unterwalden  disaster 
(September,  1798)  left  me  no  further  choice  in  the  matter.  The 
Government  felt  the  urgent  need  of  sending  help  to  this  unfortunale 
district,  and  begged  me  for  this  once  to  make  an  attempt  to  put  my 
plans  into  execution  in  a  place  where  almost  everything  that  could  have 
made  it  a  success  was  wanting. 

"  I  went  there  gladly.  I  felt  that  the  innocence  of  the  people  would 
make  up  for  what  was  wanting,  and  that  their  distress  would,  at  any 
rate,  make  them  grateful. 

"  My  eagerness  to  realise  at  last  the  great  dream  of  my  life  would  have 
led  me  t  -  work  on  the  very  highest  peaks  of  the  Alps,  and,  so  to  speak, 
without  fire  or  water. 

'*  Foi  a  house,  the  Government  made  over  to  me  the  new  part  of  the 
Ursuline  convent  at  Stanz,  but  when  I  arrived  it  was  still  uncompleted, 
and  not  in  any  way  fitted  to  receive  a  large  number  of  children.  Before 
enything  else  could  be  done,  then,  the  house  itself  had  to  be  got  ready, 


PESTALOZZI.  319 

At  Stanz:  P.'s  own  account. 

The  Government  gave  the  necessary  orders,  and  Rengger  pushed  on  the 
work  with  much  zeal  and  useful  activity.  I  was  never  indeed  allowed 
to  want  for  money. 

"  In  spite,  however,  of  the  admirable  support  I  received,  all  this, 
preparation  took  time,  and  time  was  precisely  what  we  could  least 
afford,  since  it  was  of  the  highest  importance  that  a  number  of 
children,  whom  the  war  had  left  homeless  and  destitute,  should  be 
received  at  once. 

**  I  was  still  without  everything  but  money  when  the  children  crowded 
in ;  neither  kitchen,  rooms,  nor  beds  were  ready  to  receive  them.  At 
first  this  was  a  source  of  inconceivable  confusion.  For  the  first  few 
weeks  I  was  shut  up  in  a  very  small  room  ;  the  weather  was  bad,  and 
the  alterations,  which  made  a  great  dust  and  filled  the  corridors  with 
rubbish,  rendered  the  air  very  unhealthy. 

*'  The  want  of  beds  compelled  me  at  first  to  send  some  of  the  poor 
children  home  at  night ;  these  children  generally  came  back  the  next 
day  covered  with  vermin.  Most  of  them  on  their  arrival  were  very 
degenerated  specimens  of  humanity.  Many  of  them  had  a  sort 
of  chronic  skin-disease,  which  alm.ost  prevented  their  walking,  or  sores 
on  their  heads,  or  rags  full  of  vermin  :  many  were  almost  skeletons, 
with  haggard,  careworn  faces,  and  shrinking  lo(.)ks ;  some  brazen, 
accustomed  to  begging,  hypocrisy,  and  all  sorts  of  deceit ;  others  broken 
by  misfortune,  patient,  suspicious,  timid,  and  entirely  devoid  of 
affection.  There  were  also  some  spoilt  children  amongst  them  who  had 
known  the  sweets  of  comfort,  and  were  therefore  full  of  pretensions. 
These  kept  to  themselves,  affected  to  despise  the  little  beggars  their 
comrades,  and  to  suffer  from  this  equality,  and  seemed  to  find  it  im- 
possible to  adapt  themselves  to  the  ways  of  the  house,  which  differed 
too  much  from  their  old  habits.  But  what  was  common  to  them  all 
was  a  persistent  idleness,  resulting  from  their  want  of  physical  and 
mental  activity.  Out  of  every  ten  children  there  was  hardly  one  who 
knew  his  A  B  C  ;  as  for  any  other  knowledge,  it  was,  of  course,  out  of 
the  question. 

"The  entire  absence  of  school  learning  was  what  troubled  me  least, 
for  I  trusted  in  the  natural  powers  that  God  bestows  on  even  the  poorest 
and  most  neglected  children.  I  had  observed  for  a  long  time  that 
behind  their  coarseness,  shyness,  and  apparent  incapacity,  are  hidden 
the  finest  faculties,  the  most  precious  powers  ;  and  now,  even  amongst 


320 


PESTALOZZI. 


At  Stanz:  P.'s  own  account. 


these  poor  creatures  by  whom  I  was  surrounded  at  Stanz,  marked 
natural  abilities  soon  began  to  show  themselves.  I  knew  how  useful 
the  common  needs  of  life  are  in  teaching  men  the  relations  of  things,  in 
bringing  out  their  natural  intelligence,  in  forming  their  judgment,  and 
in  arousing  faculties  which,  buried,  as  it  were,  beneath  the  coaiser 
elements  of  their  nature,  cannot  become  active  and  useful  till  they  are 
aet  free.  It  was  my  object  then  to  set  free  these  faculties,  and  bring 
them  to  bear  on  the  pure  and  simple  circumstances  of  domestic  life,  for 
I  was  convinced  this  was  all  that  was  wanting,  and  these  natural 
faculties  would  shew  themselves  capable  of  raising  the  hearts  and  minds 
of  my  pupils  to  all  that  I  could  desire. 

"I  saw  then  how  my  \vishes  might  be  carried  out ;  and  I  was  persuaded 
that  my  affection  would  change  the  state  of  my  children  just  as  quickly 
as  the  spring  sun  would  awake  to  new  life  the  earth  that  winter  had 
benumbed.  I  was  not  deceiving  myself :  before  the  spring  sun  melted 
the  snow  of  our  mountains  my  children  were  hardly  to  be  recognised. 

"But  I  must  not  anticipate.  Just  as  in  the  evening  I  often  mark  the 
quick  growth  of  the  gourd  by  the  side  of  the  house,  so  I  want  you  to 
mark  the  growth  of  my  plant ;  and,  my  friend,  I  will  not  hide  from 
you  the  worm  which  sometimes  fastens  on  the  leaves,  sometimes  even 
on  the  heart. 

"  I  opened  the  establishment  with  no  other  helper  but  a  woman- 
servant.  I  had  not  only  to  teach  the  children,  but  to  look  after  their 
physical  needs.  I  preferred  being  alone,  and,  unfortunately,  it  was  the 
only  way  to  reach  my  end.  No  one  in  the  world  would  have  cared  to 
enter  into  my  views  for  the  education  of  children,  and  at  that  time  I 
knew  scarcely  any  one  even  capable  of  it. 

"  In  proportion  as  the  men  whom  I  might  have  called  to  my  aid  were 
highly  educated  just  so  far  they  failed  to  understand  me,  and  were 
incapable  of  confining  themselves  even  in  theory  to  the  simple  starling- 
pomts  which  I  sought  to  come  back  to.  All  their  views  about  the 
organisation  and  requirements  of  the  enterprise  differed  entirely  from 
mine.  What  they  specially  objected  to  was  the  notion  that  the  enter- 
prise might  be  carried  out  without  the  aid  of  any  artificial  means,  and 
simply  by  the  influence  of  nature  in  the  environment  of  the  children, 
and  by  the  activity  aroused  in  them  by  the  needs  of  their  daily  life. 

"  And  yet  it  was  precisely  upon  this  idea  that  I  based  all  my  hope  of 
success  ;  it  was,  as  it  were,  a  basis  for  innumerable  other  points  of  view. 


PESTALOZZI,  321 


At  Stanz :   P.'s  own  account. 


"  Experienced  teachers,  then,  could  not  help  me  ;  still  less  boorish, 
Ignorant  men.  I  had  nothing  to  put  into  the  hands  of  assistants  to 
f.uide  them,  nor  any  results  or  apparatus  by  which  I  could  make  my 
ideas  clearer  to  them.  Thus,  whether  I  would  or  no,  I  had  first  to 
make  my  experiment  alone,  and  collect  facts  to  illustrate  the  essential 
features  of  my  system  before  I  could  venture  to  look  for  outside  help. 
Ind  cd  in  my  then  position,  nobody  could  help  me.  I  knew  that  I  must 
help  myself  and  shaped  my  plans  accordingly. 

"  I  wanted  to  prove  by  my  experiment  that  if  public  education  is  to 
have  any  real  value  for  humanity,  it  must  imitate  the  means  which  make 
the  merit  of  domestic  education  ;  for  it  is  my  opinion  that  if  school 
teaching  does  not  take  into  consideration  the  circumstances  of  family  life, 
and  everything  else  that  bears  on  a  man's  general  education,  it  can  only 
lead  to  an  artificial  and  methodical  dwarfing  of  humanity. 

' '  In  any  good  education,  the  mother  must  be  able  to  judge  daily,  nay 
hourly,  from  the  child's  eyes,  lips,  and  face,  of  the  slightest  change  in 
his  soul.  The  power  of  the  educator,  too,  must  be  that  of  a  father, 
quickened  by  the  general  circumstances  of  domestic  life. 

"  Such  was  the  foundation  upon  which  I  built.  I  determined 
that  there  should  not  be  a  minute  in  the  day  when  my  children  should 
not  be  aware  from  my  face  and  my  lips  that  my  heart  was  theirs,  that 
their  happiness  was  my  happiness,  and  their  pleasures  my  pleasures. 

•'  Man  readily  accepts  what  is  good,  and  the  child  readily  listens  to 
it ;  but  it  is  not  for  you  that  he  wants  it,  master  and  educator,  but  for 
himself.  The  good  to  which  you  would  lead  him  must  not  depend  on 
your  capricious  humour  or  passion  ;  it  must  be  a  good  which  is  good  in 
itself  and  by  the  nature  of  things,  and  which  the  child  can  recognize  as 
good.  He  must  feel  the  necessity  of  your  will  in  things  which  concern 
his  comfort  before  he  can  be  expected  to  obey  it. 

"Whatever  he  does  gladly,  whatever  gains  him  credit,  whatever 
tends  to  accomplish  his  great  hopes,  whatever  awakens  his  powers  and 
enables  him  truly  to  say  I  can,  all  this  he  wills. 

"  But  this  will  is  not  aroused  by  words  ;  it  is  aroused  only  by  a  kind 
of  complete  culture  which  gives  feelings  and  powers.  Words  do  not 
give  the  thing  itself,  but  only  an  expression,  a  clear  picture,  of  the  thing 
which  we  already  have  in  our  minds. 

"  Before  all  things  I  was  bound  to  gain  the  confidence  and  the 
tore  of  the  childr<;n.     I  was  sure  that  if  I  succeeded  in  this  all  the  rest 


322  PESTALOZZL 


At  Stanz:   P.'s  own  account. 


would  come  of  itself.  Friend,  only  think  how  I  was  placed,  and  how 
great  were  the  prejudices  of  the  people  and  of  the  children  themselves, 
and  you  will  comprehend  what  difficulties  I  had  to  overcome.  ' 
After  narrating  what  we  already  know  he  goes  on  : 
'*  Think,  my  friend,  of  this  temper  of  the  people,  of  my  weakness, 
of  my  poor  appearance,  of  the  ill-will  to  which  I  was  almost  publicly 
exposed,  and  thgn  judge  how  much  I  had  to  endure  for  the  sake  of 
carrying  on  my  work. 

"  And  yet,  however  painful  this  want  of  help  and  support  was  to  me, 
it  was  favourable  to  the  success  of  my  undertaking,  for  it  compelled  me 
to  be  always  everything  for  my  children.  I  was  alone  with  them  from 
morning  till  night.  It  was  from  me  that  they  received  all  that  could 
do  them  good,  soul  and  body.  All  needful  help,  consolation,  and 
instruction  they  received  direct  from  me.  Their  hands  were  in  mine, 
my  eyes  were  fixed  on  theirs. 

"We  wept  and  smiled  together.  They  forgot  the  world  and  Stanz  ; 
they  only  knew  that  they  were  with  me  and  I  with  them.  We  shared 
our  food  and  drink.  I  had  about  me  neither  family,  friends,  nor 
servants  ;  nothing  but  them.  I  was  with  them  in  sickness,  and  in 
health,  and  when  they  slept.  I  was  the  last  to  go  to  bed,  and  the  first 
to  get  up.  In  the  bedroom  I  prayed  with  them,  and,  at  their  own 
request,  taught  them  till  they  fell  asleep.  Their  clothes  and  bodies 
were  intolerably  filthy,  but  I  looked  after  both  myself,  and  was  thus 
constantly  exposed  to  the  risk  of  coniagion. 

"  This  is  how  it  was  that  these  children  gradually  became  so  attached 
to  me,  some  indeed  so  deeply  that  they  contradicted  their  parents  and 
friends  when  they  heard  evil  things  said  about  me.  They  felt  that  I 
was  being  treated  unfairly,  and  loved  me,  I  think,  the  more  for  it. 
But  of  what  avail  is  it  for  the  young  nestlings  to  love  their  mother  when 
the  bird  of  prey  that  is  bent  on  destroying  themis  constantly  hoveringnear? 
*'  However,  the  first  results  of  these  principles  and  of  this  line  of 
action  were  not  always  satisfactory,  nor,  indeed,  could  they  be  so. 
The  children  did  not  always  understand  my  love.  Accustomed  to 
idleness,  unbounded  liberty,  and  the  fortuitous  and  lawless  pleasures  of 
an  almost  wild  life,  they  had  come  to  the  convent  in  the  expectation  of 
being  well  fed,  and  of  having  nothing  to  do.  Some  of  them  soon 
discovered  that  they  had  been  there  long  enough,  and  wanted  to  go 
away  again  ;  they  talked  of  the  school  fever  that  attacks  children  when 


PESTALOZZI.  323 


At  Stanz:   P.'s  own  account. 


they  are  kept  employed  all  day  long.  This  dissatisfaction,  which 
sliowed  itself  during  the  first  months,  resulted  principally  from  the  fact 
that  many  of  them  were  ill,  the  consequence  either  of  the  sudden 
change  of  diet  and  habits,  or  of  the  severity  of  the  weather  and  the 
dampness  of  the  building  in  which  we  lived.  We  all  coughed  a  great 
deal,  and  several  children  were  seized  with  a  peculiar  sort  of  fever. 
This  fever,  which  always  began  with  sickness,  was  very  general  in  the 
district.  Cases  of  sickness,  however,  not  followed  by  fever,  were  not 
at  all  rare,  and  were  an  almost  natural  consequence  of  the  change  of 
food.  Many  people  attributed  the  fever  to  bad  food,  but  the  facts  soon 
showed  them  to  be  wrong,  for  not  a  single  child  succumbed. 

"  On  the  return  of  spring  it  was  evident  to  everybody  that  the 
children  were  all  doing  well,  growing  rapidly,  and  gaining  colour. 
Certain  magistrates  and  ecclesiastics,  who  saw  them  some  time  after- 
wards, stated  that  they  had  improved  almost  beyond  recognition.  .  .  . 

"  Months  passed  before  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  having  my  hand 
grasped  by  a  single  grateful  parent.  But  the  children  were  won  over 
much  sooner.  They  even  wept  sometimes  when  their  parents  met  me 
or  left  me  without  a  word  of  salutation.  Many  of  them  were  perfectly 
ha]3py,  and  used  to  say  to  their  mothers  :  '  I  am  better  here  than  at 
home.'  At  home,  indeed,  as  they  readily  told  me  when  we  talked 
alone,  they  had  been  ill-used  and  beaten,  and  had  often  had  neither 
bread  to  eat  nor  bed  to  lie  down  upon.  And  yet  these  same  children 
would  sometimes  go  off  with  their  mothers  the  very  next  morning. 

"A  good  many  others,  however,  soon  saw  that  by  staying  with  me 
they  might  both  learn  something  and  become  something,  and  these  never 
failed  in  their  zeal  and  attachment.  Before  very  long  their  conduct 
was  imitated  by  others  who  had  not  altogether  the  same  feelings. 

"Those  who  ran  away  weie  the  worst  in  character  and  the  least 
capable.  But  they  were  not  incited  to  go  till  they  were  free  of  their 
veimin  and  their  rags.  Several  were  sent  to  me  with  no  other  purpose 
than  that  of  being  taken  away  again  as  soon  as  they  were  clean  and 
well  clothed. 

"  But  after  a  time  their  better  judgment  overcame  the  defiant  hostility 
with  which  they  arrived.  In  1799*  I  had  nearly  eighty  children. 
Must  of  them  weie  bright  and  intelligent,  some  even  remarkably  so. 

*  Pestalozzi  was  with  the  children  at  Stanz  only  during  the  fiist  half 
cl  1799- 


324  PESTALOZZI. 


At  Stanz  :   P.'s  own  account. 


"  For  most  of  them  study  was  something  entirely  new.  As  soon  ai 
they  found  that  they  could  learn,  their  zeal  was  indefatigable,  and  in  a 
few  weeks  children  who  had  never  before  opened  a  book,  and  couM 
hardly  repeat  a  Pater  Noster  or  an  Ave,  would  study  the  whole  day 
long  with  the  keenest  interest.  Even  after  supper,  when  I  used  to  say 
to  them,  'Children,  will  you  go  to  bed,  or  learn  something?'  they 
would  generally  answer,  especially  in  the  first  month  or  two,  '  Learn 
something.'  It  is  true  that  afterwards,  when  they  had  to  get  up  very 
early,  it  was  not  quite  the  same. 

"  But  this  first  eagerness  did  much  towards  starting  the  establishment 
on  the  right  lines,  and  making  the  studies  the  success  they  ultimately 
were,  a  success  indeed,  which  far  surpassed  my  expectations.  And 
yet  great  beyond  expression  were  my  difticulties.  I  did  not  as  yet  find 
it  possible  to  organise  the  studies  properly. 

"  Neither  my  trust  nor  my  zeal  had  been  able  to  overcome  either  the 

intractability  of  individuals  or  the  want  of  coherence  in  the  whole 

experiment.     The  general  order  of  the  establishment,  I  felt,  must  be 

based  upon  order  of  a  higher  character.     As  this  higher  order  did  not 

yet  exist,  I  had  to  attempt  to  create  it ;  for  without  this  foundation  I 

could  not  hope  to  organise  properly  either  the  teaching  or  the  general 

\/^      management  of  the  place,  nor  should  I  have  wished  to  do  so.     I  wanted 

^y^    everything    to   result   not    from   a   preconceived   plan,   but   from   my 

"'^  relations  with  the  children.     The  high  principles  and  educating  forces 

"^     ^  was  seeking,  I  looked  for  from  the  harmonious  common  life  of  my 

*■  ,  t  children,  from  their  common  attention,  activity,  and  needs.     It  was  not, 

'T"_     then,  from  any  external  organisation  that  I  looked  for  the  regeneration 

of  which  they  stood  so  much  in  need.     If  I  had  employed  constraint, 

regulations,  and  lectures,  I  should,  instead  of  winning  and  ennobling 

my  children's  hearts,  have  repelled  them  and  made  them  bitter,  and 

thus  been  farther  than  ever  from  my  aim.     First  of  all,  I  had  to  arouse 

in  them  pure,  moral,  and  noble  feelings,  so  that  afterwards,  in  external 

things,  I  might  be  sure  of  their  ready  attention,  activity,  and  obedience. 

I  had,  in  short,  to  follow  the  high  precept  of  Jesus  Christ,  '  Cleanse  first 

that  which  is  within,  that  the  outside  may  be  clean  alo  ' ;  and  if  ever 

the  truth  of  this  precept  was  made  manifest,  it  was  made  manifest  then. 

"  My  one  aim  was  to  make  their  new  life  in  conimon,  and  their  new 

powers,  awaken  a  feeling  of  brotherhood  amongt,t  the  children,  and 

make  them  affectionate,  just,  and  considerate. 


PESTALOZZI.  325 


At  Stanz :   P.'s  own  account. 


'*  I  was  successful  in  gaining  my  aims.  Amongst  these  seventy  wild 
beggar-children  there  soon  existed  such  peace,  friendship,  and  cordial 
itlitions  as  are  rare  even  between  actual  brothers  and  sisters. 

"  The  principle  to  which  I  endeavoured  to  conform  all  my  conduct 
was  as  follows  :  Endeavour,  first,  to  broaden  your  children's 
sympathies,  and,  by  satisfying  their  daily  needs,  to  bring  love  and 
kindness  into  such  unceasing  contact  with  their  impressions  and  their 
activity,  that  these  sentiments  may  be  engrafted  in  their  hearts  ;  then 
try  to  give  them  such  judgment  and  tact  as  will  enable  them  to  make  a 
wise,  sure,  and  abundant  use  of  these  virtues  in  the  circle  which 
surrounds  them.  In  the  last  place,  do  not  hesitate  to  touch  on  the 
difficult  questions  of  good  and  evil,  and  the  words  connected  with 
them.  And  you  must  do  this  especially  in  connection  with  the  ordinary 
events  of  every  day,  upon  which  your  whole  teaching  in  these  matters 
must  be  founded,  so  that  the  children  may  be  reminded  of  their  own 
feelings,  and  supplied,  as  it  were,  with  solid  facts  upon  which  to  base 
their  conception  of  the  beauty  and  justice  of  the  moral  life.  Even  though 
you  should  have  to  spend  whole  nights  in  trying  to  express  in  two 
words  what  others  say  in  twenty,  never  regret  the  loss  of  sleep. 

"  I  gave  my  children  very  few  explanations  ;  I  taught  them  neither 
morality  nor  religion.     But  sometimes,  when  they  were  perfectly  quiet, 
I  used  to  say  to  them,  '  Do  you  not  think  that  you  are  better  and  more 
reasonable  when  you  are  like  this  than  when  you  are  making  a  noise  ? ' 
When  they  clung  round  my  neck  and  called  me  their  father,  I  used  to 
say,  '  My  children,  would  it  be  right  to  deceive  your  father  ?     After         ' 
kissing  me  like  this,  would  you  like  to  do  anything  behind  my  back  to 
vex  me  ? '     When  our  talk  turned  on  the  misery  of  the  country,  and 
they  were  feeling  glad  at  the  thought  of  their  own  happier  lot,  I  would 
say,  *  How  good  God  is  to  have  given  man  a  compassionate  heart  ! ' 
...  They  perfectly  understood  that  all  they  did  was  but  a  prepara-  ■^' 
tion  for  their  future  activity,  and  they  looked  forward  to  happiness  as   >       / 
the  certain  result  of  their  perseverance.    That  is  why  steady  application    1 
soon  became  easy  to  them,  its  object   being  in  perfect  accordance  with  ^^ 
I  heir  wishes  and  their  hopes.     Virtue,  my  friend,  is  developed  by  this^^^^^ 
agreement,  just  as  the  young  plant  thrives  when  the  soil  suits  its  nature,  ^         1 
and  supplies  the  needs  of  its  tender  shoots.  >^M-i 

"  I  witnessed   the  growth  of  an  inward  strength  in  my  children,  I 

which,  in  its  general  development,  far  surpassed  my  expectations,  and 


326  PESTALOZZI. 


At  Stanz:   P.'s  own  account. 


in  its  particular  manifestations  not  only  often  surprised  me,  but  touched 
me  deeply. 

"  When  the  neighbouring  town  of  Altdorf  was  burnt  down,  I 
gathered  the  children  round  me,  and  said,  '  Altdorf  has  been  burnt 
down  ;  perhaps,  at  this  very  moment,  there  are  a  hundred  children 
there  without  home,  food,  or  clothes ;  will  you  not  ask  our  good 
Government  to  let  twenty  of  them  come  and  live  with  us?'  I  siilj 
seem  to  see  the  emotion  with  which  they  answered,  '  Oh,  yes,  yes  ! ' 
'  But,  my  children,'  I  said,  '  think  well  of  what  you  are  asking  !  Even 
now  we  have  scarcely  money  enough,  and  it  is  not  at  all  certain  that  if 
these  poor  children  came  to  us,  the  Government  would  give  us  any 
more  than  they  do  at  present,  so  that  you  might  have  to  work  harder, 
and  share  your  clothes  with  these  children,  and  sometimes  perhaps  go 
without  food.  Do  not  say,  then,  that  you  would  like  them  to  come 
unless  you  are  quite  prepared  for  all  these  consequences.'  After  having 
spoken  to  them  in  this  way  as  seriously  as  I  could,  I  made  them  repeat 
all  I  had  said,  to  be  quite  sure  that  they  had  thoroughly  understood 
what  the  consequences  of  their  request  would  be.  But  they  were  not 
in  the  least  shaken  in  their  decision,  and  all  repeated,  '  Yes,  yes,  we 
are  quite  ready  to  work  harder,  eat  less,  and  share  our  clothes,  for  we 
want  them  to  come. ' 

"  Some  refugees  from  the  Grisons  having  given  me  a  few  crowns  for 
my  poor  children,  I  at  once  called  them  and  said,  '  These  men  are 
obliged  to  leave  their  country  ;  they  hardly  know  where  they  will  find 
a  home  to-morrow,  yet,  in  spite  of  their  trouble,  they  have  given  me 
this  for  you.  Come  and  thank  them.'  And  the  emotion  of  the 
children  brought  tears  to  the  eyes  of  the  refugees. 

"  It  was  in  this  way  that  I  strove  to  awaken  the  feeling  of  each 
virt'ie  before  talking  about  it,  for  I  thought  it  unwise  to  talk  to  children 
on  subjects  which  would  compel  them  to  speak  without  thoroughly 
understanding  what  they  were  saying. 

"  I  followed  up  this  awakening  of  the  sentiments  by  exercises  intended 
to  teach  the  children  self-control,  so  that  all  that  was  good  in  them 
might  be  applied  to  the  practical  questions  of  every-day  life. 

"  It  will  easily  be  understood  that,  in  this  respect,  it  was  not  possible 
to  organise  any  system  of  discipline  for  the  establishment ;  tbnt  could 
only  come  slowly,  as  the  general  work  developed. 

*'  Silence,  as  an  aid  to  application,  is  perhaps  the  great  secret  of  sucb 


PESTALOZZI.  327 


At  Stanz:   P.'s  own  account. 


an  institution.  I  found  it  very  useful  to  insist  on  silence  when  I  was 
teaching,  and  also  to  pay  particular  attention  to  the  attitude  of  my 
children.  I  succeeded  so  well  that  the  moment  I  asked  for  silence,  I 
could  teach  in  quite  a  low  voice.  The  children  repeated  my  words  all 
together ;  and  as  there  was  no  other  sound,  I  was  able  to  detect  the 
slightest  mistakes  of  pronunciation.  It  is  true  that  this  was  not  always 
so.  Sometimes,  whilst  they  repeated  sentences  after  me,  I  would  ask 
them  as  if  in  fun  to  keep  their  eyes  fixed  on  their  middle  fingers.  It  is 
hardly  credible  how  useful  simple  things  of  this  sort  sometimes  are 
as  means  to  the  very  highest  ends. 

"  One  young  girl,  for  instance,  who  had  been  little  better  than  a 
savage,  by  keeping  her  head  and  body  upright,  and  not  looking  about, 
made  more  progress  in  her  moral  education  than  any  one  would  have 
believed  possible. 

"  These  experiences  have  shown  me  that  the  mere  habit  of  carrying 
oneself  well  does  much  more  for  the  education  of  the  moral  sentiments 
than  any  amount  of  teaching  and  lectures  in  which  this  simple  fact  is 
ignored. 

"Thanks  to  the  application  of  these  principles,  my  children  soon 
became  more  open,  more  contented  and  more  susceptible  to  every  good 
and  noble  influence  than  any  one  could  possibly  have  foreseen  when 
they  first  came  to  me,  so  utterly  devoid  were  they  of  ideas,  good 
feelings,  and  moral  principles.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  lack  of 
previous  instruction  was  not  a  serious  obstacle  to  me  ;  indeed,  it  hardly 
troubled  me  at  all.  I  am  inclined  even  to  say  that,  in  the  simple 
method  I  was  following,  it  was  often  an  advantage,  for  I  had  incom- 
parably less  trouble  to  develop  those  children  whose  minds  were  still 
blank,  than  those  who  had  already  acquired  inaccurate  ideas.  The 
formtT,  too,  were  much  more  open  than  the  latter  to  the  influence  of  all 
pure  and  simple  sentiments. 

"  But  when  the  children  were  obdurate  and  churlish,  then  I  was 
gt  vere,  and  made  use  of  corporal  punishment. 

'*  My  dear  friend,  the  pedagogical  principle  which  says  that  we  must 
win  the  hearts  and  minds  of  our  children  by  words  alone  without 
having  recourse  to  corporal  punishment,  is  certainly  good,  and  applicable 
under  favourable  conditions  and  circumstances  ;  but  with  children  of 
such  widely  different  ages  as  mine,  children  for  the  most  part  beggars, 
ttn^  all  full  of  deeply-rooted  faults,  a  certain  amount  of  corporal  punish* 


328  PESTALOZZI. 

At  Stanz:   P.'s  own  account. 

ment  was  inevitable,  especially  as  I  was  anxious  to  arrive  surely, 
speedily,  and  by  the  simplest  means,  at  gaining  an  influence  over  them 
all,  for  the  sake  of  putting  them  all  in  the  right  road.  I  was  compelled 
to  punish  them,  but  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  I  thereby,  in 
any  way,  lost  the  confidence  of  my  pupils. 

"  It  is  not  the  rare  and  isolated  actions  that  form  the  opinions  and 
feelings  of  children,  but  the  impressions  of  every  day  and  every  hour. 
From  such  impressions  they  judge  whether  we  are  kindly  disposed 
towards  them  or  not,  and  this  settles  their  general  attitude  towards  us. 
Their  judgment  of  isolated  actions  depends  upon  this  general  attitude. 

"  This  is  how  it  is  that  punishments  inflicted  by  parents  rarely  make 
a  bad  impression.  But  it  is  quite  different  with  schoolmasters  and 
teachers  who  are  not  with  their  children  night  and  day,  and  have  none 
of  those  relations  with  them  which  result  from  life  in  common. 

"  My  punishments  never  produced  obstinacy  ;  the  children  I  had 
beaten  were  quite  satisfied  if  a  moment  afterwards  I  gave  them  my 
hand  and  kissed  them,  and  I  could  read  in  their  eyes  that  the  final 
effect  of  my  blows  was  really  joy.  The  following  is  a  striking  instance 
of  the  effect  this  sort  of  punishment  sometimes  had.  One  day  one  of 
the  children  I  liked  best,  taking  advantage  of  my  affection,  unjustly 
threatened  one  of  his  companions.  I  was  very  indignant,  and  my 
hand  did  not  spare  him.  He  seemed  at  first  almost  broken-hearted,  and 
cried  bitterly  for  at  least  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  When  I  had  gone  out, 
however,  he  got  up,  and  going  to  the  boy  he  had  ill-treated,  begged  his 
pardon,  and  thanked  him  for  having  spoken  about  his  bad  conduct. 
My  friend,  this  was  no  comedy  ;  the  child  had  never  seen  anything 
like  it  before. 

"  It  was  impossible  that  this  sort  of  treatment  should  produce  a  bad 
impression  on  my  children,  because  all  day  long  I  was  giving  them 
proofs  of  my  affection  and  devotion.  They  could  not  misread  my 
heart,  and  so  they  did  not  misjudge  my  actions.  It  was  not  the  same 
with  the  parents,  friends,  strangers,  and  teachers  who  visited  us ;  but 
that  was  natural.  But  I  cared  nothing  for  the  opinion  of  the  whole 
world,  provided  my  children  understood  me. 

"  I  always  did  my  best,  therefore,  to  make  them  clearly  understand 
the  motives  of  my  actions  in  all  matters  likely  to  excite  their  attention 
and  interest.  This,  my  friend,  brings  me  to  the  consideration  of  the 
moral  means  to  be  employed  in  a  truly  domestic  education. 


PESTALOZZI.  329 


At  Stanz :   P.'s  own  account. 


"  Elementary  moral  education,  considered  as  a  whole,  includes  three 
distinct  parts  :  the  children's  moral  sense  must  first  be  aroused  by  their 
feelings  being  made  active  and  pure  ;  then  they  must  be  exercised  in 
self-control,  so  that  they  may  give  themselves  to  that  which  is  right  and 
goo<i  ;  finally  they  must  be  brought  to  form  for  themselves,  by  reflection 
and  comparison,  a  just  notion  of  the  moral  rights  and  duties  which  are 
theirs  by  reason  of  their  position  and  surroundings. 

'*  So  far,  I  have  pointed  out  some  of  the  means  I  employed  to  reach 
the  first  two  of  these  ends.  They  were  just  as  simple  for  the  third  ;  for 
I  still  made  use  of  the  impressions  and  experiences  of  their  daily  life  to 
give  my  children  a  true  and  exact  idea  of  right  and  duty.  When,  for 
instance,  they  made  a  noise,  I  appealed  to  their  own  judgment,  and 
asked  them  if  it  was  possible  to  learn  under  such  conditions.  I  shall 
never  forget  how  strong  and  true  I  generally  found  their  sense  of 
justice  and  reason,  and  how  this  sense  increased  and,  as  it  were,  estab- 
lished their  good  will. 

"  I  appealed  to  them  in  all  matters  that  concerned  the  establishment. 
It  was  generally  in  the  quiet  evening  hours  that  I  appealed  to  their  free 
judgment.  When,  for  instance,  it  was  reported  in  the  village  that  they 
had  not  enough  to  eat,  I  said  to  them,  *  Tell  me,  my  children,  if  you 
are  not  better  fed  than  you  were  at  home  ?  Think,  and  tell  me  your- 
selves, whether  it  would  be  well  to  keep  you  here  in  such  a  way  as 
would  make  it  impossible  for  you  afterwards,  in  spite  of  all  your  appli- 
cation and  hard  work,  to  procure  what  you  had  become  accustomed  to. 
Do  you  lack  anything  that  is  really  necessary  ?  Do  you  think  that  I 
could  reasonably  and  justly  do  more  for  you?  Would  you  have  me 
spend  all  the  money  that  is  entrusted  to  me  on  thirty  or  forty  children 
instead  of  on  eighty  as  at  present  ?     Would  that  be  just  ? ' 

*'  In  the  same  way,  when  I  heard  that  it  was  reported  that  I  punished 
them  too  severely,  I  said  to  them :  '  You  know  how  I  love  you,  my 
children  ;  but  tell  me  would  you  like  me  to  stop  punishing  you  ?  Do 
you  ihmk  that  in  any  other  way  I  can  free  you  from  your  deeply-rooted 
bad  habits,  or  make  you  always  mind  what  I  say  ? '  You  were  there, 
my  friend,  and  saw  with  your  own  eyes  the  sincere  emotion  with  which 
they  answered,  '  We  don't  complain  about  your  hitting  us.  We  wish 
we  never  deserved  it.     But  we  want  to  be  punished  when  we  do  wrong.  * 

"  Many  things  that  make  no  difference  in  a  small  household  could 
not  be  tolerated  where  the  numbers  were  so  great.     I  tried  to  maka 


330  PESTALOZZI. 


At  Stanz:   P.'s  own  account. 


my  children  feel  this,  always  leaving  them  to  decide  what  could  or 
could  not  be  allowed.  It  is  true  that  in  my  intercourse  with  them  I 
never  spoke  of  liberty  or  equality  ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  I  encourage  d 
them  as  far  as  possible  to  be  free  and  unconstrained  in  my  presence,  wi(h 
the  result  that  every  day  I  marked  more  and  more  that  clear  open  look 
in  their  eyes  which,  in  my  experience,  is  the  sign  of  a  really  liberal 
education.  I  could  not  bear  the  thought  of  betraying  the  trust  in  me 
which  I  saw  shining  in  their  eyes  ;  I  strove  constantly  to  strengthen  it 
and  at  the  same  time  their  free  individuality,  that  nothing  might  happen 
to  trouble  those  angel-eyes,  the  sight  of  which  caused  me  the  most 
intense  delight.  But  I  could  not  endure  frowns  and  anxious  looks  ;  I 
myself  smoothed  away  the  frowns  ;  then  the  children  smiled,  and  even 
among  themselves  they  took  care  not  to  shew  frowning  faces. 

"  By  rfeason  of  their  great  number,  I  had  occasion  nearly  every  day 
to  point  out  the  difference  between  good  and  evil,  justice  and  injustice. 
Good  and  evil  are  equally  contagious  amongst  so  many  children,  so  that, 
according  as  the  good  or  bad  sentiments  spread,  the  establishment  was 
likely  to  become  either  much  better  or  much  worse  than  if  it  had  only  con- 
tained a  smaller  number.  About  this,  too,  I  talked  to  them  frankly.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  nnpression  that  my  words  produced  when,  in  speaking 
of  a  certain  disturbance  that  had  taken  place  among  them,  I  said, 
'  My  children,  it  is  the  same  with  us  as  with  every  other  household ; 
when  the  children  are  numerous,  and  each  gives  way  to  his  bad  habits, 
the  disorder  becomes  such  that  the  weakest  mother  is  driven  to  take 
sensible  measures  in  bringing  up  her  children,  and  make  them  submit  to 
what  is  just  and  right.  And  that  is  what  I  must  do  now.  If  you  do 
not  willingly  assist  in  the  maintenance  of  order,  our  establishment 
cannot  go  on,  you  will  fall  back  into  your  former  condition,  and  your 
misery  —now  that  you  have  been  accustomed  to  a  good  home,  clean 
clothes,  and  regular  food — will  be  greater  than  ever.  In  this  world,  my 
children,  necessity  and  conviction  alone  can  teach  a  man  to  behave  ; 
when  both  fail  him,  he  is  hateful.  Think  for  a  moment  what  you 
would  become  if  you  were  safe  from  want  and  cared  nothing  for  right, 
justice,  or  goodness.  At  home  there  was  always  some  one  who  looked 
after  you,  and  poverty  itself  forced  you  to  many  a  right  action  ;  but  with 
convictions  and  reason  to  guide  you,  you  will  rise  far  higher  than  by 
following  necessity  alone.' 

"  I  often  spoke  to  them  in  this  way  without  troubling  in  the  least 


PESTALOZZI.  331 


At  Stanz:  P.'s  own  account. 


whether  they  each  understood  every  word,  feeling  quite  sure  that 
they  all  caught  the  general  sense  of  what  I  said 

"  Here  are  a  few  more  thoughts  which  produced  a  great  impression  on 
my  children  :  *  Do  you  know  anything  greater  or  nobler  than  to  give 
cuu'isel  to  the  poor,  and  comfort  to  the  unfortunate?  But  if  you  remain 
ignorant  and  incapable,  you  will  be  obliged,  in  spite  of  your  good  heart, 
to  let  things  take  their  course  ;  whereas,  if  you  acquire  knowledge  and 
|)ower,  you  will  be  able  to  give  good  advice,  and  save  many  a  man  from 
misery.' 

"I  have  generally  found  that  great,  noble,  and  high  thoughts  are 
indispensable  for  developing  wisdom  and  firmness  of  character. 

"  Such  an  instruction  must  be  complete  in  the  sense  that  it  must  take 
account  of  all  our  aptitudes  and  all  our  circumstances  ;  it  must  be  con- 
ducted, too,  in  a  truly  psychological  spirit,  that  is  to  say,  simply, 
lovingly,  energetically,  and  calmly.  Then,  by  its  very  nature,  it  pro- 
duces an  enlightened  and  delicate  feeling  for  everything  true  and  good, 
and  brings  to  light  a  number  of  accessory  and  dependent  truths,  which 
are  forthwith  accepted  and  assimilated  by  the  human  soul,  even  in  the 
case  of  those  who  could  not  express  these  truths  in  words. 

*'  I  believe  that  the  first  development  of  thought  -n  the  child  is  very 
much  disturbed  by  a  wordy  system  of  teaching,  which  is  not  adapted 
either  to  his  faculties  or  the  circumstances  of  his  life.  According  to  my 
experience,  success  depends  upon  whether  what  is  taught  to  children 
commends  itself  to  them  as  true  through  being  closely  connected  with 
their  own  personal  observation  and  experience 

"  I  knew  no  other  order,  method,  or  art,  but  that  which  resulted 
naturally  from  my  children's  conviction  of  my  love  for  them,  nor  did  I 
care  to  know  any  other. 

"Thus  I  subordinated  the  instruction  of  my  children  to  a  higher  aim, 
which  was  to  arouse  and  strengthen  their  best  sentiments  by  the  relations 
o'.  every-day  life  as  they  existed  between  themselves  and  me.     .     .     . 

"As  a  general  rule  I  attached  little  importance  to  the  s'udy  of 
words,  even  when  explanations  of  the  ideas  they  represented  were 
given. 

"  1  tried  to  connect  study  with  manual  labour,  the  school  with  the 
workshop,  and  make  one  thing  of  them.  But  I  was  the  less  able  to  do 
this  as  staff,  material,  and  tools  were  all  wanting.  A  short  time  only 
before  the  close  of  the  establishment,  a  few  children  had  begun  to  spin  ; 


332  PESTALOZZI. 


At  Stanz:   P.'s  own  account 

and  I  saw  clearly  that,  before  any  fusion  could  be  effected,  the  two  parts 
must  be  firmly  estabhshed  separately — study,  that  is,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  labour  on  the  other. 

"But  in  the  work  of  the  chilc'ren  I  was  already  inclined  to  care  less 
for  the  immediate  gain  than  for  the  physical  training  which,  by  devt  lop- 
ing their  strength  and  skill,  was  bound  to  supply  liiem  later  with  a 
means  of  livelihood.  In  the  same  way  I  considered  that  what  is 
generally  called  the  instruction  of  children  should  be  merely  an  exercise 
of  the  faculties,  and  I  felt  it  important  to  exercise  the  attention, 
observation,  and  memory  first,  so  as  to  strengthen  these  faculties  before 
calling  into  play  the  art  of  judging  and  reasoning  ;  this,  in  my  opinion, 
was  the  best  way  to  avoid  turning  out  that  sort  of  superficial  and  pre 
sumptuous  talker,  whose  false  judgments  are  often  more  fatal  to  the 
happiness  and  progress  of  humanity  than  the  ignorance  of  simple  people 
of  good  sense. 

"  Guided  by  these  principles,  I  sought  less  at  first  to  teach  my 
children  to  spell,  read,  and  write  than  to  make  use  of  these  exercises 
for  the  purpose  of  giving  their  minds  as  full  and  as  varied  a  development 
as  possii)le 

"  In  natural  history  they  were  very  quick  in  corroborating  what  I 
taught  them  by  their  own  personal  observations  on  plants  and  animals. 
I  am  quite  sure  that,  by  continuing  in  this  way,  I  should  soon  have 
been  able  not  only  to  give  them  such  a  general  acquaintance  with  the 
subject  as  would  have  been  useful  in  any  vocation,  but  also  to  put 
them  in  a  position  to  carry  on  their  education  themselves  by  means  of 
their  daily  observations  and  experiences  ;  and  I  should  have  been  able 
to  do  all  this  without  going  outside  the  very  restricted  sphere  to  which 
they  were  confined  by  the  actual  circumstances  of  their  lives.  I  hold  it 
to  be  extremely  important  that  men  should  be  encouraged  to  learn  by 
themselves  and  allowed  to  develop  freely.  It  is  in  this  way  alone  that 
the  diversity  of  individual  talent  is  produced  and  made  evident. 

"  I  always  made  the  children  learn  perfectly  even  the  least  important 
things,  and  I  never  allowed  them  to  lose  ground  ;  a  word  once  learnt,  for 
instance,  was  never  to  be  forgotten,  and  a  letter  once  well  written  never 
to  be  written  badly  again.  I  was  very  patient  with  all  who  were  weak 
or  slow,  but  very  severe  with  those  who  did  anything  less  well  than  they 
had  done  it  before. 

♦'  The  number  and  inequality  of  my  children  rendered  my  task  easia. 


PESTALOZZI.  333 


Value  of  the  five  months'  experience. 

Just  as  in  a  family  the  eldest  and  cleverest  child  readily  shows  what  he 
knows  lo  his  younger  brothers  and  sisters,  and  feels  proud  and  happy  to 
be  able  to  take  his  mother's  place  for  a  moment,  so  my  children  were 
delighted  when  they  knew  something  that  they  could  teach  others.  A 
sentiment  of  honour  awoke  in  them,  and  they  learned  twice  as  well  by 
making  the  younger  ones  repeat  their  words.  In  this  way  I  soon  had 
helpers  and  collaborators  amongst  the  children  themselves.  When  I 
was  teaching  them  to  spell  difficult  words  by  heart,  I  used  to  allow  any 
child  who  succeeded  in  saying  one  properly  to  teach  it  to  the  others. 
These  child-helpers,  whom  I  had  formed  from  the  very  outset,  and  who 
had  followed  my  method  step  by  step,  were  certainly  much  more  useful 
to  me  than  any  regular  schoolmasters  could  have  been. 

"  I  myself  learned  with  the  children.  Our  whole  system  was  so 
simple  and  so  natural  that  I  should  have  had  difficulty  in  finding  a 
master  who  would  not  have  thought  it  undignified  to  learn  and  teach  as 
I  was  doing 

"  You  will  hardly  believe  that  it  was  the  Capuchin  friars  and  the  nuns 
of  the  convent  that  showed  the  greatest  sympathy  with  my  work.  Few 
people,  except  Truttman,  took  any  active  interest  in  it.  Those  from 
whom  I  had  hoped  most  were  too  deeply  engrossed  with  their  high 
political  affairs  to  think  of  our  little  institution  as  having  the  least  degree 
of  importance. 

"  Such  were  my  dreams  ;  but  at  the  very  moment  that  I  seemed  to  be 
on  the  point  of  realizing  them,  I  had  to  leave  Stanz." 

§  50.  Heroic  efforts  rise  above  the  measurement  of  time. 
As  Byron  has  said,  "  A  thought  is  capable  of  years,"  and  it 
seldom  happens  that  the  nobleness  of  any  human  action 
depends  on  the  time  it  lasts.  Pestalozzi's  five  months' 
experiment  at  Stanz  proved  one  of  the  most  memorable 
events  in  the  history  of  education.  He  was  now  completely 
satisfied  that  he  saw  his  way  to  giving  children  a  right 
education  and  "  thus  raising  the  beggar  out  of  the  dung-hill "; 
and  seeing  the  right  course  he  was  urged  by  his  love  of  the 
people  into  taking  it.  But  how  was  he  to  set  to  work  ? 
His  notions  of  school  instruction  differed  entirely  from 
24 


334  PESTALOZZI. 


p.  a  strange  Schoolmaster. 


those  of  the  teaching  profession ;  and  even  in  the  revolu- 
tionary age  they  had  some  reason  for  looking  askance  at 
this  revolutionist.  "  He  had  everything  against  him,"  we 
read,  "thick,  indistinct  speech,  bad  writing,  ignorance  of 
drawing,  scorn  of  grammatical  learning.  He  had  studied 
various  branches  of  natural  history,  but  without  any  particular 
attention  either  to  classification  or  terminology.  He  was 
conversant  with  the  ordinary  operations  in  arithmetic,  but 
he  would  have  had  difficulty  in  getting  through  a  really  long 
sum  in  multiplication  or  division ; -and  he  probably  had 
never  tried  to  work  out  a  problem  in  geometry.  For  years 
this  dreamer  had  read  no  books.  But  instead  of  the  usual 
knowledge  that  any  young  man  of  ordinary  talent  can  acquire 
in  a  year  or  two,  he  understood  thoroughly  what  most 
masters  were  entirely  ignorant  of — the  mind  of  man  and  the 
laws  of  its  development,  human  affections  and  the  art  of 
arousing  and  ennobling  them.  He  seemed  to  have  almost 
an  intuitive  insight  into  the  development  of  human  nature, 
and  was  never  tired  of  contemplating  it."  (C.  Monnard  in 
R.'s  Guimps,  p.  174.)* 

§  51.  This  man  wished  to  be  a  schoolmaster,  but  who 
would  venture  to  entrust  him  with  a  school  ?  No  one 
seemed  willing  to  do  this ;  and  he  would  have  been  at  a 
loss  where  to  turn  had  he  not  had  influential  friends  at 
Burgdorf,  a  town  not  far  from  Bern.  These  got  for  him 
permission  to  teach,  not  indeed  the  children  of  burgesses  but 

*  As  Pestalozzi  wrote  to  Gessner  {How  Gertrude,  Ss'c.') :  "You  see 
street -gossip  is  not  always  entirely  wrong;  I  really  could  not  write 
properly,  nor  read,  nor  reckon.  But  people  always  jump  to  wrong 
conclusions  from  such  'notorious  facts.'  At  Stanz  you  saw  that  I 
could  teach  writing  without  myself  being  able  to  ¥rrite  properly." 
He  here  anticipates  a  paradox  of  Jacotot's. 


PESTALOZZI.  335 

At  Burgdorf.     First  official  approval. 

the  children  of  non-burgesses,  seventy-three  of  whom  used  to 
assemble  under  a  shoemaker  in  his  house  in  the  suburbs. 
With  this  arrangement,  however,  the  shoemaker  and  the 
parents  of  the  children  were  by  no  means  satisfied.  "  If 
the  burgesses  like  the  new  method,"  they  said  very 
reasonably,  *'  let  them  try  it  on  their  own  children."  Their 
grumbling  was  heard,  and  permission  to  teach  was  withdrawn 
from  Pestalozzi. 

§  52.  The  check,  however,  was  only  temporary.  His  friends 
were  wiser  than  the  shoemaker,  and  they  procured  for  him 
admission  into  the  lowest  class  of  the  school  for  burghers' 
children.  In  this  class  there  were  about  25  children,  boys 
and  girls  between  the  ages  of  5  and  8.  Here  he  proved 
that  he  was  vastly  different  from  a  mere  dreamer.  After 
teaching  these  children  in  his  own  way  for  eight  months  he 
received  the  first  official  recognition  of  the  merits  of  his 
system.  The  Burgdorf  School  Commission  after  the  usual 
examination,  wrote  a  public  letter  to  Pestalozzi,  in  which  they 
said:  "The  surprising  progress  of  your  little  scholars  of 
various  capacities  shews  plainly  that  every  one  is  good  for 
something,  if  the  teacher  knows  how  to  get  at  his  abilities 
and  develop  them  according  to  the  laws  of  psychology.  By 
your  method  of  teaching  j'ou  have  proved  how  to  lay  the 
groundwork  of  instruction  in  such  a  way  that  it  may  afterwards 
support  what  is  built  on  it.  .  .  Between  the  ages  of  5 
and  8,  a  period  in  which  according  to  the  system  of  torture 
enforced  hitherto,  children  have  learnt  to  know  their  letters, 
to  spell  and  read,  your  scholars  have  not  only  accomplished 
all  this  with  a  success  as  yet  unknown,  but  the  best  of  them 
have  already  distinguished  themselves  by  their  good  writing, 
drawing,  and  calculating.  In  them  all  you  have  been  able 
so  to  arouse  and  excite  a  liking  for  history,  natural  history, 


336  PESTALOZZI. 


A  child's  notion  of  P.'s  teaching. 

mensuration,  geography,  &c.,  that  thus  future  teachers  must 
find  their  task  a  far  easier  one  if  they  only  know  how  to 
make  good  use  of  the  preparatory  stage  the  children  have 
gone  through  with  you"  (Morf,  Pt.  I,  p.  223). 

§  53.  In  consequence  of  this  report,  Pestalozzi  in  June 
1800  was  made  master  of  the  second  school  of  Burgdorf,  a 
school  numbering  about  70  boys  and  girls  from  10  to  16 
years  old.  With  them  Pestalozzi  did  not  get  on  so  well. 
Ramsauer,  a  poor  boy  of  10  who  afterwards  helped  Pestalozzi 
at  Yverdun  and  became  one  of  his  best  teachers,  has  left  us 
his  remembrances.  Two  things  seemed  clear  to  the  child's 
mind  :  ist,  that  their  teacher  was  very  kind  but  very  unhappy ; 
2nd,  that  the  pupils  did  not  learn  anything  and  behaved  very 
badly.  Many  schoolmasters  have  smiled  in  derision  at  this 
account  of  Pestalozzi's  actual  teaching;  but  in  reading  it 
several  things  should  be  borne  in  mind.  First  Ramsauer  as 
a  child  would  have  a  keen  eye  and  good  memory  for  the 
master's  eccentricities ;  but  how  far  the  teaching  succeeded 
he  could  not  judge,  for  he  did  not  know  what  it  aimed  at. 
Then  again  he  saw  that  Pestalozzi's  zeal  was  for  the  whole 
school,  not  for  individual  scholars.  But  the  child  who  knew 
of  nothing  beyond  Burgdorf  could  not  tell  that  Pestalozzi 
was  thinking  not  so  much  of  the  children  of  Burgdorf  as  of 
the  children  of  Europe.  For  Burgdorf — whether  it  was 
pleased  to  honour  or  to  dismiss  Pestalozzi — could  not  contain 
him.  His  aims  extended  beyond  the  town,  beyond  canton 
Bern,  beyond  Switzerland  even ;  and  he  was  consumed  with 
zeal  to  bring  about  a  radical  change  in  elementary  education 
throughout  Europe.  The  truth  which  was  burning  within 
him  he  has  himself  expressed  as  follows  : 

"  If  we  desire  to  aid  the  poor  man,  the  very  lowest  among 
the  people,  this  can  be  done  in  one  way  only,  that  is,  by 


PESTALOZZI.  337 


p.  engineering  a  new  road. 


changing  his  schools  into  true  places  of  education,  in  which 
the  moral,  intellectual,  and  physical  powers  which  God  has  put 
into  our  nature  may  be  draivn  out,  so  that  the  man  may  be 
enabled  to  live  a  life  such  as  a  man  should  live,  contented 
in  himself  and  satisfying  other  people.  Thus  and  only  thus 
does  the  man,  whom  in  God's  wide  world  nobody  helps  and 
nobody  can  help,  learn  to  help  himself,"  "  The  public 
common  school-coach  throughout  Europe  must  not  simply  be 
better  horsed,  but  still  more  it  must  be  turned  round  and  be 
brought  on  to  an  entirely  new  road.'"     (Quoted  by  Morf,  P. 

I,  p.   211.) 

§  54.  Pestalozzi  was  now  working  heart  and  soul  at  the 
engineering  of  this  "  new  road."  His  grand  successes 
hitherto  had  been  gained  more  by  the  heart  than  by  the 
head ;  but  the  school  course  must  draw  out  the  faculties  of 
the  head  as  well  as  of  the  heart.  Pestalozzi  made  all 
instruction  start  from  what  childreh  observed  for  themselves. 
"  I  laid  special  stress,"  he  says,  "  on  just  what  usually  affected 
their  senses.  And  as  I  dwelt  much  on  elementary  knowledge, 
I  wanted  to  know  when  the  child  receives  its  first  lesson, 
and  I  soon  came  to  the  conviction  that  the  first  hour  of 
learning  dates  from  birth.  From  the  very  moment  that  the 
childs  senses  open  to  the  impressions  of  nature,  nature 
teaches  it.  Its  new  life  is  but  the  faculty,  now  come  to 
maturity,  of  receiving  impressions ;  it  is  the  awakening  of 
the  germs  now  perfect  which  will  go  on  using  all  their  forces 
and  energies  to  secure  the  development  of  their  proper 
organisation  ;  it  is  the  awakening  of  the  animal  now  complete 
whicii  will  and  shall  become  a  man.  So  the  sole  instruction 
given  to  the  human  being  consists  merely  in  the  art  of  giving 
a  helping  hand  to  this  natural  tendency  towards  its  proper 
development ;  and  this  art  consists  essentially  in  the  means 


338  PESTALOZZI. 


Psychologizing  instruction. 


of  putting  the  child's  impressions  in  connexion  and  hannony 
with  the  precise  degree  of  development  the  child  has 
reached.  There  must  be  then  in  the  impressions  to  be 
given  him  by  instruction,  a  regular  gradation ;  and  the 
beginning  and  the  progress  of  his  various  knowledges  must 
exactly  correspond  with  the  beginning  and  increase  in  his 
powers  as  they  are  developed.  From  this  I  soon  saw  that 
this  gradation  must  be  ascertained  for  all  the  branches  of 
human  knowledge,  especially  for  those  fundamental  notions 
from  which  our  thinking  power  takes  its  rise.  On  such 
principles  and  no  others  is  it  possible  to  construct  real  school 
books  and  books  about  teaching"  (  Wie  Gertrud,&ic.,'L(ti\.erl.). 
§  55.  In  endeavouring  to  put  teaching,  as  he  said,  "on  a 
psychological  basis,"  Pestalozzi  compared  it  to  a  mechanism. 
On  one  occasion  when  expounding  his  views,  he  was 
interrupted  by  the  exclamation,  "Vous  voulez  mdcaniser 
I'education  ! "  Pestalozzi  was  weak  in  French,  and  he  took 
these  words  to  mean,  "  You  wish  to  get  at  the  mechanism 
of  education."  He  accordingly  assented,  and  was  in  his 
turn  misunderstood.  Soon  afterwards  he  endeavoured  to 
express  the  new  thing  by  a  new  word  and  said,  "  Ich  will 
den  menschlichen  Unterricht  psychologi^ieren;  I  wish  to 
psychologise  instruction,"  and  this  he  explains  to  mean 
that  he  sought  to  make  instruction  fall  in  with  the  eternal 
laws  which  govern  the  development  of  the  human  intellect 
(Morf,  I,  p.  227).  But  this  was  a  task  which  no  one  man 
could  accomplish,  not  even  Pestalozzi.  The  eternal  laws 
which  govern  the  development  of  mind  have  not  been 
completely  ascertained  even  after  investigations  carried  on 
during  thousands  of  years ;  and  Pestalozzi  did  not  know 
what  had  been  established  by  previous  thinkers.  He  made 
a  gigantic  effort  to  find  both  the  laws  and  their  application, 


PESTALOZZI.  339 


School  course.     Singing;  and  the  beautiful. 

but  if  he  had  continued  to  stand  alone  he  could  have  done 
but  little.  Happily  he  attracted  to  him  some  young  and 
vigorous  assistants,  who  caught  his  enthusiasm  and  worked 
in  his  spirit.  They  did  much,  but  there  was  one  thing  the 
Master  could  not  communicate — his  genius. 

§  56.  Just  at  this  time,  before  Pestalozzi  found  associates 
in  his  work,  he  drew  up  for  a  '*  Society  of  Friends  of 
Education  "  an  account  of  his  method ;  and  this  begins 
with  the  words  I  have  already  quoted,  *'  I  want  to  psycholo- 
gise  education."  Basing  all  instruction  on  Anschauung 
(which  is  nearly  equivalent  to  the  child's  own  observation), 
he  explains  how  this  may  be  used  for  a  series  of  exercises, 
and  he  takes  as  the  general  elements  of  culture  the  fol- 
lowing :  language,  drawing,  writing,  arithmetic,  and  the  art 
of  measuring.  In  the  education  of  the  poor  he  would  lay 
special  stress  on  the  importance  of  two  things,  then  and 
since  much  neglected,  viz.,  singing  and  the  sense  of  the 
beautiful.  The  mother's  cradle  song  should  begin  a  series 
leading  up  to  hymns  of  praise  to  God.  Education  should 
develop  in  all  a  sense  of  the  beauties  of  Nature.  "  Nature 
is  full  of  lovely  sights,  yet  Europe  has  done  nothing  either 
to  awaken  in  the  poor  a  sense  for  these  beauties,  or  to 
arrange  them  in  such  a  way  as  to  produce  a  series  of 
impressions  capable  of  developing  this  sense.  .  .  If 
.ever  popular  education  should  cease  to  be  the  barbarous 
absurdity  it  now  is,  and  put  itself  into  harmony  with  the 
real  needs  of  our  nature,  this  want  will  be  supplied." 
(R.'s  Guimps,  186.) 

§  57,  In  the  last  year  of  the  eighteenth  century  (1800) 
Pestalozzi  was  toiling  away,  constant  to  his  purpose  but  not 
clearly  seeing  the  road  before  him.  In  March,  1800,  he 
wrote  to  Zschokke:  '•  For  thirty  years  my  hfe  has  been  a  well* 


340  PESTALOZZI. 


P.'s  poverty.     Kruesi  joins  him. 

nigh  hopeless  struggle  against  the  most  frightful  poverty.  .  . 
For  thirty  years  I  have  had  to  forego  many  of  the  barest 
necessaries  of  life,  and  have  had  to  shun  the  society  of  my 
fellow-men  from  sheer  lack  of  decent  clothes.  Many  and 
many  a  time  have  I  gone  without  a  dinner  and  eaten  in  bitter- 
ness a  dry  crust  of  bread  on  the  road  at  a  time  when  even  the 
poorest  were  seated  round  a  table.  All  this  I  have  suffered 
and  am  still  suffering  to-day,  and  with  no  other  object  than 
the  realization  of  my  plans  for  helping  the  poor"  (R.'s 
Guimps,  189).  It  was  clear  that  he  could  not  help  others 
till  he  himself  got  help ;  and  he  now  did  get  just  the  help 
he  wanted,  an  assistant  who  though  a  schoolmaster  was, 
strange  to  say,  perfectly  ready  to  learn,  and  to  throw  himself 
into  carrying  out  another  man's  ideas.  This  was  Hermann 
Kruesi,  a  man  twenty-five  years  old,  who  from  the  age  of 
18  had  been  master  of  the  village  school  at  Gais  in 
Appenzell.  In  consequence  of  the  war  between  the  French 
and  Austrians,  Appenzell  was  now  reduced  to  a  state  of 
famine,  and  bands  of  children  were  sent  off  to  other 
cantons  to  escape  starvation.  Fischer,  a  friend  of  Pesta- 
lozzi's,  and  himself  an  educationist  taught  by  Salzmann 
{supra  289),  wrote  from  Burgdorf  to  the  pastor  of  Gais, 
offering  to  get  thirty  children  taken  in  by  the  people  of 
Burgdorf,  and  asking  that  they  might  be  sent  with  some  one 
who  would  look  after  them  in  the  day-time  and  teach  them. 
In  answer  to  this  invitation  Kruesi,  after  a  week's  march, 
entered  Burgdorf  with  a  troop  of  little  ones.  The  children 
were  drawn  up  in  an  open  place,  and  benevolent  people 
chose  which  they  would  adopt.  Kruesi  was  taken  into  the 
Castle  which  the  Government  had  made  over  partly  to 
Fischer,  partly  to  Pestalozzi.  In  it  Kruesi  opened  a  day- 
schooL      Fischer  soon  afterwards  diedj    and    Pestalozzi 


PESTALOZZI.  341 


P.'s  assistants.     The  Burgdorf  Institute. 

proposed  to  Kruesi,  who  had  become  entirely  converted  to 
his  views,  that  they  should  unite  and  together  carry  on  the 
school  in  the  Castle.  By  a  decree  of  23rd  July,  1800,  the 
Executive  Council  granted  to  Pestalozzi  the  gratuitous  use 
of  as  much  of  the  Castle  and  garden  as  he  needed,  and 
thus  was  established  Pestalozzi's  celebrated  Institute  at 
Burgdorf. 

§  58.  Very  soon  Kruesi  enlisted  other  helpers  who  had 
read  Leonard  and  Gertrude^  viz.,  Tobler  and  Buss,  and 
this  is  his  account  of  the  party  :  "  Our  society  thus  con- 
sisted of  four  very  different  men.  .  .  the  founder,  whose 
chief  reputation  was  that  of  a  dreamy  writer,  incapable  in 
practical  life,  and  three  young  men,  one  [Tobler]  a  private 
tutor  whose  youth  had  been  much  neglected,  who  had 
begun  to  study  late,  and  whose  pedagogic  efforts  had  never 
produced  the  results  his  character  and  talents  seemed  to 
promise ;  another  [Buss],  a  bookbinder,  who  devoted 
his  leisure  to  singing  and  drawing  ;  and  a  third  [Kruesi 
himself],  a  village  schoolmaster  who  carried  out  the  duties 
of  his  office  as  best  he  could  without  having  been  in  any 
way  prepared  for  them.  Those  who  looked  on  this  group  of 
men,  scarce  one  of  them  with  a  home  of  his  own,  naturally 
formed  but  a  small  opinion  of  their  capabilities.  And  yet 
our  work  succeeded,  and  won  the  public  confidence  beyond 
the  expectations  of  those  who  knew  us,  and  even  beyond 
our  own  "  (R-'s  Guimps,  304). 

§  59.  With  assistance  from  the  Government  there  was 
added  to  the  united  schools  of  Pestalozzi  and  Kruesi  a 
training  class  for  teachers  ;  and  elementary  teachers  were 
sent  to  spend  a  month  at  Burgdorf  and  learn  of  Pestalozzi, 
as  years  afterwards  they  were  sent  to  the  same  town  to 
iearn  of  Froebel.     This  Institute  opened  in  January,  1801, 


342  PESTALOZZI. 


Success  of  the  Burgdorf  Institute. 

and  had  nearly  three  years  of  complete  success,  f  In  it  was 
carried  out  Pestalozzi's  notion  that  there  should  be  "no 
gulf  between  the  home  and  the  school."  On  one  occasion 
a  parent  visiting  the  establishment  exclaimed,  "  Why,  this 
is  not  a  school  but  a  family!"  and  Pestalozzi  declared 
that  this  was  the  highest  praise  he  could  give  it)  The  bond 
which  united  them  all,  both  teachers  and  scholars,  was  love 
of  "  Father  Pestalozzi."  Want  of  space  kept  the  number  of 
children  below  a  hundred,  and  these  enjoyed  great  freedom 
and  worked  away  without  rewards  and  almost  without 
punishments.  Both  public  reports  and  private  speak  very 
highly  of  the  results.  In  June,  1802,  the  President  of  the 
Council  of  Public  Education  in  Bern  declares  :  "  Pestalozzi 
has  discovered  the  real  and  universal  laws  of  all  elementary 
teaching."  A  visitor,  Charles  Victor  von  Bonstetten,  writes : 
"  The  children  know  little,  but  what  they  know,  they  know 
well.  .  .  They  are  very  happy  and  evidently  take  great 
pleasure  in  their  lessons,  which  says  a  great  deal  for  the 
method.  .  .  As  it  will  be  long  before  there  is  another 
Pestalozzi,  I  fear  that  the  rich  harvest  his  discovery  seems 
to  promise  will  be  reserved  for  future  ages." 

The  success  of  the  method  was  specially  conspicuous  in 
arithmetic.  A  Niirnberg  merchant  who  came  prejudiced 
against  Pestalozzi  was  much  impressed  and  has  acknow- 
ledged :  "  I  was  amazed  when  I  saw  these  children  treating 
I  he  most  complicated  calculations  of  fractions  as  the  simplest 
thing  in  the  world." 

§  60.  Up  to  this  point  Pestalozzi  may  be  said  to  have 
gained  by  the  disposition  to  "reform"  or  revolutionise 
everything,  which  had  prevailed  in  Switzerland  since  1798. 
But  from  the  reaction  which  now  set  in  he  suffered  more 
than  he  had  gained.     Switzerland  sent  deputies  to  Paris  to 


PESTALOZZI.  343 

Reaction.     Pestalozzi  and  Napoleon  I. 

discuss  under  the  direction  of  the  First  Consul  Bonaparte 
what  should  be  their  future  form  of  Government.  Among 
these  deputies  Pestalozzi  was  elected,  and  he  set  off  thinking 
more  of  the  future  of  tlie  schools  than  of  the  future  of  the 
Government.  At  Paris  he  asked  for  an  interview  with 
Bonaparte,  but  destruction  being  in  his  opinion  a  much 
higher  art  than  instruction,  the  First  Consul  said  he  could 
not  be  bothered  about  questions  of  A,  B,  C.  He,  however, 
deputed  Monge  to  hear  what  Pestalozzi  had  to  say,  but  the 
mathematician  seems  to  have  agreed  with  some  English 
authorities  that  "  there  was  nothing  in  Pestalozzi."*  On  his 
return  to  Switzerland  Pestalozzi  was  asked  by  Buss,  "  Did 
you  see  Bonaparte  ?"  "  No,"  replied  Pestalozzi,  "  I  did  not 
see  Bonaparte  and  Bonaparte  did  not  see  me."  His  pre- 
sumption in  thus  putting  himself  on  an  equality  with  the 
great  conqueror  seems  to  have  taken  away  the  breath  of  his 
contemporaries :  but  "  the  whirligig  of  time  brings  in  his 
revenges,"  and  before  the  close  of  the  century  Europe 
already  thinks  more  in  amount,  and  immeasurably  more  in 
respect,  of  Pestalozzi  than  of  Bonaparte. 

§  6 1,  As  a  result  of  the  reaction  the  Government  of 
United  Switzerland  ceased  to  exist,  and  the  Cantons  were 
restored.  Tliis  destroyed  Pestalozzi's  hopes  of  Government 
support,  and  even  turned  his  Institute  out  of  doors      The 

*  Years  afterwards  Napoleon,  though  he  could  not  foresee  Sedan,  got 
a  notion  that  after  all  there  was  something  in  Pestalozzi ;  and  that  the 
aim  of  the  system  was  to  put  the  freedom  and  development  of  the 
individual  in  the  place  of  the  mechanical  routine  of  the  old  schools, 
which  tended  to  produce  a  mass  of  dull  uniformity.  With  this  aim,  aa 
Guimps  says.  Napoleon  was  quite  out  of  sympathy,  and  whenever  the 
subject  was  mentioned  he  would  say,  "  The  Pestalozzians  are  Jesuits  "; 
thus  very  inaccurately  expressing  an  accurate  notion  that  there  was 
more  in  them  than  could  be  understood  at  the  first  glance. 


344  PESTALOZZI. 

Fellenberg.     P.  goes  to  Yverdun. 

Castle  of  Burgdorf  was  at  once  demanded  for  the  Prefect  of 
the  DisiricL ;  but  Pestalozzi  was  offered  an  old  convent  at 
Miinchenbuchsee  near  Bern,  and  thither  he  was  forced  to 
migrate. 

§  62.  Close  to  Miinchenbuchsee  was  Hofwyl  where  was 
the  agricultural  institution  of  Emmanuel  Fellenberg. 
Fellenberg  and  Pestalozzi  were  old  friends  and  corres- 
pondents, and  as  they  had  much  regard  for  each  other  and 
Fellenberg  was  as  great  in  administration  as  Pestalozzi  in 
ideas,  there  seemed  a  chance  of  their  benefiting  by  co- 
operation ;  but  this  could  not  be.  The  teachers  desired 
that  the  administration  should  be  put  into  the  hands  of 
Fellenberg,  and  this  was  done  accordingly,  "  not  without 
my  consent,"  says  Pestalozzi,  "  but  to  my  profound  mortifi- 
cation." He  could  not  work  with  this  "  man  of  iron,"  as  he 
calls  Fellenberg ;  so  he  left  Miinchenbuchsee  and  accepting 
one  of  several  invitations  he  settled  in  the  Castle  of  Yverdun 
near  the  lake  of  Neuchatel.  Within  a  twelvemonth  he  was 
followed  by  his  old  assistants,  who  had  found  government 
by  Fellenberg  less  to  their  taste  than  no-government  by 
Pestalozzi. 

§  63.  Thus  arose  the  most  celebrated  Institute  of  which 
we  read  in  the  history  of  education.  For  some  years  its 
success  seemed  prodigious.  Teachers  came  from  all  quarters, 
many  of  them  sent  by  the  Governments  of  the  countries  to 
which  they  belonged,  that  they  might  get  initiated  into  the 
Pestalozzian  system.  Children  too  were  sent  from  great 
distances,  some  of  them  being  intrusted  to  Pestalozzi,  some 
of  them  living  with  their  own  tutor  in  Yverdun  and  only 
attending  the  Institute  during  the  day.  The  wave  of 
enthusiasm  for  the  new  ideas  seemed  to  carry  ever>thing 
before  it ;  but  there  is  nothing  stable  in  a  wave,  and  wheu 


PESTALOZZI.  345 


A  portrait  of  Pestalozzi. 


the  enthusiasm  has  subsided  disappointment  follows.  This 
was  the  case  at  Yverdun,  and  Pestalozzi  outlived  his  Institute. 
But  the  principles  on  which  he  worked  and  the  spirit  in 
which  he  worked  could  not  pass  away;  and,  at  least  in 
Germany,  all  elementary  schoolmasters  acknowledge  how 
much  they  are  indebted  to  his  teaching. 

§  64.  Of  the  state  of  things  in  the  early  days  of  the 
Institute  we  have  a  very  lively  account  written  for  his  own 
children  by  Professor  Vuillemin,  who  entered  it  in  1805  as  a 
child  of  eight,  and  was  in  it  for  two  years.  From  this  I  extract 
the  following  portrait  of  Pestalozzi :  "  Imagine,  my  children, 
a  very  ugly  man  with  rough  bristling  hair,  his  face  scarred 
with  small-pox  and  covered  with  freckles,  an  untidy  beard, 
no  neck-tie,  his  breeches  not  properly  buttoned  and  coming 
down  to  his  stockings,  which  in  their  turn  descended  on  to 
his  great  thick  shoes ;  fancy  him  panting  and  jerking  as  he 
walked ;  then  his  eyes  which  at  one  time  opened  wide  to 
send  a  flash  of  lightning,  at  another  were  half  closed  as  if 
engaged  on  what  was  going  on  within;  his  features  now 
expressing  a  profound  sadness  and  now  again  the  most 
peaceful  happiness;  his  speech  either  slow  or  hurried,  either 
soft  and  melodious  or  bursting  forth  like  thunder ;  imagine 
the  man  and  you  have  him  whom  we  used  to  call  our  Father 
Pestalozzi.  Such  as  I  have  sketched  him  for  you  we  loved 
him ;  we  all  loved  him,  for  he  loved  us  all ;  we  loved  him 
so  warmly  that  when  some  time  passed  without  our  seeing 
him,  we  were  quite  troubled  about  it,  and  when  he  again 
appeared  we  could  not  take  our  eyes  off  him  "  (Guiraps, 

315)- 

§  65.  At  this  time  he  was  no  less  loved  by  his  assistants, 
who  put  up  with  any  quarters  that  could  be  found  for  them, 
and  received  no  salary.     We  read  that  the  money  paid  by 


346  PESTALOZZI. 


Prussia  adopts  Pestalozzianism. 

the  scholars  was  kept  in  the  room  of  "  the  head  of  the  family"  j 
every  master  could  get  the  key,  and  when  they  required 
clothes  they  took  from  these  funds  just  the  sum  requisite. 
This  system,  or  want  of  system,  went  on  for  some  time  with- 
out abuse.  As  Vuillemin  says,  it  was  like  a  return  to  the 
early  days  of  the  Christian  Church. 

§  66.  We  have  seen  that  the  first  Emperor  Napoleon 
"could  not  be  bothered  about  questions  of  A,  B,  C."  His 
was  the  pride  that  goes  before  a  fall.  On  the  other  hand 
the  Prussian  Government  which  he  brought  to  the  dust  in 
the  battle  of  Jena  (1806)  had  the  wisdom  to  perceive  that 
children  will  become  men,  and  that  the  nature  of  the 
instruction  they  receive  will  in  a  great  measure  determine 
what  kind  of  men  they  turn  out.  How  was  Prussia  again 
to  raise  its  head  ?  Its  rulers  decided  that  it  was  by  the 
education  of  the  people.  *'  We  have  lost  in  territory,"  said 
the  king;  "our  power  and  our  credit  abroad  have  fallen; 
but  we  must  and  will  go  to  work  to  gain  in  power  and  in 
credit  at  home.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  I  desire  above 
everything  that  the  greatest  attention  be  paid  to  the  educa- 
tion of  the  people"  (Guimps,  319).  About  the  same  time 
the  Queen  (Louisa)  wrote  in  her  private  diary,  "  I  am  reading 
Leonard  and  Gertrude,  and  I  delight  in  being  transported 
into  the  Swiss  village.  If  I  could  do  as  I  liked  I  should 
take  a  carriage  and  start  for  Switzerland  to  see  Pestalozzi ; 
I  should  warmly  shake  him  by  the  hand,  and  my  eyes  filleci 
with  tears  would  speak  my  gratitude  .  .  .  With  what  goodnessj, 
with  what  zeal,  he  labours  for  the  welfare  of  his  fellow- 
creatures  !  Yes,  in  the  name  of  humanity,  I  thank  him  with 
my  whole  heart." 

So  in  the  day  of  humiliation  Prussia  seriously  went  to 
work  at  the  education  of  the  people,  and  this  she  did  on 


PESTALOZZT.  347 


Ritter  and  others  at  Yverdun. 


the  lines  pointed  out  by  Pestalozzi.  To  him  they  were 
directed  by  their  philosopher  Fichte,  who  in  his  Addresses 
to  the  German  Nation  (deUvered  at  Beriin  1807-8)  declared 
that  education  was  the  only  means  of  raising  a  nation,  and 
that  all  sound  reform  of  public  instruction  must  be  based 
on  the  principles  of  Pestalozzi. 

To  bring  these  principles  to  bear  on  popular  education, 
the  Prussian  Government  sent  seventeen  young  men  for  a 
three  years'  course  to  Pestalozzi's  Institute,  "  where,"  as  the 
Minister  said  in  a  letter  to  Pestalozzi,  "  they  will  be  pre- 
pared not  only  in  mind  and  judgment,  but  also  in  heart, 
for  the  noble  vocation  which  they  are  to  follow,  and  will 
be  filled  with  a  sense  of  the  holiness  of  their  task,  and  with 
new  zeal  for  the  work  to  which  you  have  devoted  your 
hfe." 

§  67.  Among  the  eminent  men  who  were  drawn  to 
Yverdun  were  some  who  afterwards  did  great  things  in 
education,  as  e.g.y  Karl  Ritter,  Karl  von  Raumer  the  his- 
torian of  education,  the  philosopher  Herbart,  and  a  man 
who  was  destined  to  have  more  influence  than  anyone, 
except  perhaps  Pestalozzi  himself — I  mean  Friedrich  Froebel. 
Ritter's  testimony  is  especially  striking.  "  I  have  seen," 
says  he,  *'  more  than  the  Paradise  of  Switzerland,  for  I  have 
seen  Pestalozzi,  and  recognised  how  great  his  heart  is,  and 
how  great  his  genius ;  never  have  I  been  so  filled  with  a 
sense  of  the  sacredness  of  my  vocation  and  the  dignity  ot 
human  nature  as  in  the  days  I  spent  with  this  noble  man. 
.  .  .  .  Pestalozzi  knew  less  geography  than  a  child  in 
one  of  our  primary  schools,  yet  it  was  from  him  that  I 
gained  my  chief  knowledge  of  this  science ;  for  it  was  in 
listening  to  him  that  I  first  conceived  the  idea  of  the  natural 
method.     It  was  he  who  opened  the  way  to  me,  and  I  take 


348  PESTALOZZI. 

Causes  of  failure  at  Yverdun. 

pleasure  in  attributing  whatever  value  my  work  may  have 
entirely  to  him." 

§  68.  At  this  time  we  read  glowing  accounts  of  the 
healthy  and  happy  life  of  the  children  ;  and  throughout 
Pestalozzi  never  lost  a  single  pupil  by  illness.  With  a  body 
of  very  able  assistants,  instruction  was  carried  on  for  ten 
hours  out  ofthe  twenty-four ;  but  in  these  hours  there  was 
reckoned  the  time  spent  in  drill,  gymnastics,  hand-work, 
and  singing.  The  monotony  of  school-life  was  also  broken 
by  frequent  "  festivals." 

§  69.  And  yet  the  Institute  had  taken  into  it  the  seeds 
of  its  own  ruin.  There  were  several  causes  of  failure, 
though  these  were  not  visible  till  the  house  was  divided 
against  itself. 

§  70. f  First,  Pestalozzi  based  the  morality  and  discipline 
of  the  school  on  the  relations  of  family  life.  He  would  be 
the  "  father  "  of  all  the  children.  At  Burgdorf  this  relation 
seemed  a  reality,  but  it  completely  failed  at  Yverdun  when 
the  Institute  became,  from  the  number  of  the  pupils  and 
their  differences  in  language,  habits,  and  antecedents,  a 
little  world.  J  The  pupils  still  called  him  "  Father  Pesta- 
lozzi," but  ne  could  no  longer  know  them  as  a  father  should 
know  his  children.  Thus  the  discipline  of  affection  slowly 
disappeared,  and  there  was  no  school  discipline  to  take  its 
place. 

§71.  Next,  we  can  see  that  even  at  Burgdorf,  and  still 
more  at  Yverdun,  Pestalozzi  was  attempting  to  do  impossi- 
bilities. According  to  his  system,  the  faculties  of  the  child 
v.-ere  to  be  developed  in  a  natural  unbroken  order,  and  the 
first  exercises  were  to  give  the  child  the  power  of  sur- 
mounting later  difficulties  by  its  own  exertions.  But  this 
education  could  not  be  started  at  any  age,  and  yet  children 
of  every  age  and    every   country   were   received   into   the 


PESTALOZZI.  349 


Report  made  by  Father  Girard. 

Institution.  It  was  not  likely  that  the  fresh  comers  could 
be  made  to  understand  that  they  "  knew  nothing,"  and  must 
start  over  again  on  a  totally  different  road.  The  teachers 
might  take  such  pupils  to  the  water  of  "  sense-impressions," 
but  they  could  not  inspire  the  inclination  to  drink,  nor 
induce  the  lad  to  learn  what  he  supposed  himself  to  know 
already.     {Cfr.  supra  p.  64,  §  4.) 

§  72.  But  there  was  a  greater  mischief  at  work  than 
either  of  these.  In  his  discourse  to  the  members  of  the 
Institution  on  New  Year's  Day,  1808,  Pestalozzi  surprised 
them  all  by  his  gloom.  He  had  had  a  coffin  brought  in, 
and  he  stood  beside  it.  *  "  This  work,"  said  he,  "  was 
founded  by  love,  but  love  has  disappeared  from  our  midst." 
This  was  only  too  true,  and  the  discord  was  more  deeply 
rooted  than  at  first  appeared.  Among  the  brood  of  Pesta- 
lozzians  there  was  a  Catholic  shepherd  lad  from  Tyrol, 
Joseph  Schmid  by  name,  and  he,  in  the  end,  proved  a 
veritable  cuckoo.  As  he  shewed  very  marked  ability  in 
mathematics,  he  became  one  of  the  assistant  masters ;  and 
a  good  deal  of  the  fame  of  the  Institution  rested  on  the 
performances  of  his  pupils.  But  his  ideas  differed  totally 
from  those  of  his  colleagues,  especially  from  those  of 
Niederer,  a  clergyman  with  a  turn  for  philosophy,  who  had 
become  Pestalozzi's  chief  exponent. 

§  73.  After  Pestalozzi's  gloomy  speech,  the  masters,  with 
the  exception  of  Schmid,  urged  Pestalozzi  to  apply  for  a 
Government  inquiry  into  the  state  of  the  Institution.  This 
Pestalozzi  did,  and  Commissioners  were  appointed,  among 
them  an  educationist,  Pere  Girard  of  Freiburg,  by  whom 
the  Report  was  drawn  up.  The  Report  was  not  favourable. 
Pfere  Girard  was  by  no  means  inclined  to  sit  at  the  feet  of 
Pestalozzi,  as  he  had  principles  of  his  own.  Pestalozzi,  he 
25 


350  PESTALOZZI. 


Girard's  mistake.     Schmid  in  flight. 

thought,  laid  far  too  much  stress  on  mathematics,  and  he 
drew  from  him  a  statement  that  everything  taught  to  a  child 
should  seem  as  certain  as  that  two  and  two  made  four. 
"  Then,"  said  Girard,  "  if  I  had  thirty  children  I  would  not 
intrust  you  with  one  of  them.  You  could  not  teach  him 
that  I  was  his  father."  Thus  the  Report,  though  very 
friendly  in  tone,  was  by  no  means  friendly  in  spirit.  The 
Commissioners  simply  compared  the  performances  of  the 
scholars  with  what  pupils  of  the  same  age  could  do  in  g^d 
schools  of  the  ordinary  type,  and  Pere  Girard  stated,  though 
not  in  the  Report,  that  the  Institution  was  inferior  to  the 
Cantonal  School  of  Aargau.  But  the  comparison  of  these 
incommensurables  only  shews  that  Girard  was  not  capable 
of  understanding  what  was  going  on  at  Yverdun.  Indeed, 
he  asserts  "not  only  that  the  mother-tongue  was  neglected," 
but  also  that  the  children,  "  though  they  had  reached  a  high 
pitch  of  excellence  in  abstract  mathematics,  were  incon- 
ceivably weak  in  all  ordinary  practical  calculations."  This 
is  absurd.  In  Pestalozzian  teaching  the  abstract  never 
went  before  ordinary  practical  calculations.  The  good 
Father  evidently  blunders,  and  takes  "  head-reckoning  "  for 
abstract,  and  pen  or  pencil  arithmetic  for  practical  work. 
Reckoning  with  slate  or  paper  is  no  doubt  "  ordinary,"  but 
a  distinction  has  often  to  be  drawn  between  what  is  ordinary 
and  what  is  practical. 

§  74.  Soon  after  this  the  disputes  between  Schmid  and 
his  colleagues  waxed  so  fierce  that  Schmid  was  virtually 
driven  away.  In  1810  he  left  Yverdun,  and  declaied  the 
Institution  "  a  disgrace  to  humanity."  Great  was  the  dis- 
order into  which  the  Institution  now  fell  from  having  over 
it  only  a  genius  with  "  an  unrivalled  incapacity  to  govern." 
The  days  which  "  remind  us  of  the  early  Church  "  were  no 


PESTALOZZI.  351 


Schmid's  return.     P.'s  fame  found  useful. 

more,  and  financial  difficulties  naturally  followed  them. 
For  the  next  five  years  things  went  from  bad  to  worse,  and 
the  masters  were  then  driven  to  the  desperate,  and,  as  it 
proved,  the  fatal  step  of  inviting  the  able  and  strong-willed 
Schmid  back  again.  He  came  in  181 5,  he  acquired  entire 
control  over  Pestalozzi,  and  drove  from  him  all  his  most 
faithful  adherents,  among  them  not  only  Niederer,  who  had 
invited  the  return  of  his  rival,  but  even  Kruesi  and  the 
faithful  servant,  Elizabeth  Naef,  now  Mrs.  Kruesi,  the 
widow  of  Kruesi's  brother.  Pestalozzi's  grandson  married 
Schmid's  sister,  and  thus  united  with  him  by  family  ties, 
Schmid  took  entire  possession  of  the  old  man  and  kept  it 
till  the  end.  His  former  colleagues  seem  to  have  been 
deceived  in  their  estimate  both  of  Schmid's  mtegrity  and 
ability.  He  completed  the  ruin  of  the  Institution,  and  he 
was  finally  expelled  from  Yverdun  by  the  Magistrates. 

§  75.  But  while  Pestalozzi  seemed  falling  lower  and  lower 
to  the  eyes  of  the  inhabitants  of  Yverdun,  and  so  had  little 
honour  in  his  own  country,  his  fame  was  spreading  all  over 
Europe.  Of  this  Yverdun  was  to  reap  the  benefit.  In 
1813-14,  Austrian  troops  marched  across  Switzerland  to 
invade  France.  In  January,  1814,  the  Castle  and  other 
buildings  in  Yverdun  were  "  requisitioned  "  for  a  militaiy 
hospital,  many  of  the  Austrian  soldiers  being  down  with 
typhus  fever.  In  a  great  fright  the  Municipality  sent  off 
two  deputies  to  headquarters,  then  at  Basel,  to  petition  that 
this  order  might  be  withdrawn.  As  the  order  threatened 
the  destruction  of  his  Institution,  Pestalozzi  went  with  them, 
and  it  was  entirely  to  him  they  owed  their  success.  On 
their  return  they  reported  that  "  no  military  hospital  would 
be  established  at  Yverdun,  and  that  M.  Pestalozzi  had  been 
received  with  most  extraordinary  favour." 


352  PESTALOZZI. 


Dr.  Bell's  visit.      Death  of  Mrs.  Pestalozzi. 

§  75.  On  this  occasion  Pestalozzi  took  the  opportunity  of 
preaching  to  the  Emperor  Alexander  on  the  necessity  of 
establishing  good  schools  and  of  emancipating  the  serfs. 
The  Emperor  took  the  lecture  in  good  part,  and  allowed  the 
philanthropist  to  drive  him  into  a  corner  and  "  button-hole  " 
him. 

§  76.  In  1815  Pestalozzi  received  a  visit  from  an 
Englishman,  or  more  accurately  Scotsman — Dr.  Bell,  who, 
however,  like  most  of  our  compatriots,  could  find  nothing 
in  Pestalozzi.  Whatever  we  may  think  of  Bell  as  an 
educationist,  he  was  certainly  a  poor  prophet.  On  leaving 
Yverdun  he  said,  "  In  another  twelve  years  mutual  instruction 
will  be  adopted  by  the  whole  world  and  Pestalozzi's  method 
will  be  forgotten."* 

§  77.  In  December,  18 15,  Pestalozzi  was  thrown  more 
completely  into  the  power  of  Schmid  by  losing  the  only 
companion  from  whom  nothing  but  death  could  separate 
him — his  wife.  At  the  funeral  Pestalozzi,  standing  by  the 
coflfin,  and  as  if  heard  by  her  whose  earthly  remains  were  in 
it,  ran  over  the  disasters  and  trials  they  had  passed  through 
together,  and  the  sacrifices  she  had  made  for  him.  "  What 
in  those  days  of  affliction,"  said  he,  "  gave  us  strength  to 
bear  our  troubles  and  recover  hope?"  and  taking  up  a  Bible 
he  went  on,  "  This  is  the  source  whence  you  drew,  whence 
we  both  drew  courage,  strength,  and  peace." 

*  Pestalozzi  had  from  this  country  some  more  discerning  visitors,  e.g., 
J>  P.  Greaves,  to  whom  Pestnlozzi  addressed  Letters,  which  were 
Uanslated  and  published  in  this  country ;  also  Dr.  Mayo,  who  was  at 
Vverdun  with  his  pupils  for  three  years  from  1818  and  afterwards  con- 
ducted a  celebrated  Pestalozzian  school  at  Cheam.  Dr.  Mayo  in  1826 
lectured  on  Pestalozzi's  system  at  the  Royal  Institution.  Sir  Jas.  Kay- 
Shuttleworth  and  Mr.  Tufnellalso  drew  attention  to  it  in  the  "Mmutes 
of  Council  on  Education." 


PESTALOZZI.  353 


Works  republished.    Clindy.    Yverdun  left. 

§  78.  The  "  death  agony  of  the  Institution,"  as  Guimps 
calls  it,  lasted  for  some  years,  but  in  this  gloomy  period 
there  are  only  two  incidents  I  will  mention.  The  first  is 
the  publication  of  Pestalozzi's  writings,  for  which  Schmid 
and  Pestalozzi  sought  subscriptions  ;  and  the  appeal  was 
so  cordially  answered  that  Pestalozzi  received  ;^2,ooo. 
This  sum  he  wished  to  devote  to  the  carrying  out  of  a  plan 
he  had  always  cherished  of  an  orphanage  at  Neuhof ;  but 
the  money  seems  to  have  melted  we  do  not  know  how. 

§  79.  The  other  incident  is  that  of  Pestalozzi's  last 
success.  In  spite  of  Schmid  he  would  open  a  school  for 
twelve  neglected  children  at  Clindy,  a  hamlet  near  Yverdun. 
Here  he  produced  results  like  those  which  had  crowned  his 
first  efforts  at  Neuhof,  Stanz,  and  Burgdorf.  Old,  absent- 
minded,  and  incapable  as  he  seemed  in  ordinary  affairs,  he, 
as  though  by  enchantment,  gained  the  attention  and  the 
affection  of  the  children,  and  bent  them  entirely  to  his  will. 
In  a  few  months  the  number  of  children  had  risen  to  thirty, 
and  wonderful  progress  had  been  made.  Clindy  at  once 
became  celebrated.  Pestalozzi  was  induced  to  admit  some 
children  whose  friends  paid  for  them,  and  Schmid  then 
persuaded  the  old  man  to  remove  the  school  into  the  Castle. 

§  80.  In  1824  the  Institution,  which  had  lasted  for  twenty 
years,  was  finally  closed,  and  Pestalozzi  went  to  spend  his 
remaining  days  (nearly  three  years  as  it  proved)  at  Neuhof, 
which  was  then  in  the  hands  of  his  grandson.  The  year 
before  his  death  he  visited  an  orphanage  conducted  on  his 
principles  by  Zeller  at  Beuggen  near  Rheinfelden.  The 
children  sang  a  poem  of  Goethe's  quoted  in  Leonard  and 
Gertrude,  and  had  a  crown  of  oak  ready  to  put  on  the  old 
man's  head  ;  but  this  he  declined.  "  I  am  not  worthy  of  it," 
said  he,  "  l^eep  it  for  innocence." 


354  PESTALOZZI. 


Death.    New  aim  ;  develop  organism. 

§  8 1.  On  17th  February,  1827,  at  the  age  of  eighty-one, 
Pestalozzi  fell  asleep. 


§  82.  "  The  reform  needed,"  said  Pestalozzi,  "  is  not 
that  the  school-coach  should  be  better  horsed,  but  that  it 
should  be  turned  right  round  and  started  on  a  new  track." 
This  may  seem  a  violent  metaphor,  but  perhaps  it  is  not 
more  violent  than  the  change  that  was  (and  in  this  country 
still  is)  necessary.  Let  us  try  to  ascertain  what  is  the  right 
road  according  to  Pestalozzi,  and  then  see  on  what  road  the 
school-coach  is  now  travelling. 

§  83.  rThe  grand  change  advocated  by  Pestalozzi  was  a 
change  of  object.  The  main  object  of  the  school  should 
not  be  to  teach  but  to  develops 

§  84.  This  change  of  object  naturally  brings  many 
changes  with  it.  Measured  by  their  capacity  for  acquiring 
school  knowledge  and  skill  young  children  may  be  con- 
sidered, as  one  of  H.M.  Inspectors  considered  them,  "the 
fag-end  of  the  school."  But  if  the  school  exists  not  to 
teach  but  to  develop,  young  children,  instead  of  being  the 
."  fag-end,"  become  the  most  important  part  of  all.  In  the 
development  of  all  organisms  more  depends  on  the  earlier 
than  on  the  later  stages ;  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  this  law  holds  in  the  case  of  human  beings.  On  this 
account,  from  the  days  of  Pestalozzi  educational  science 
has  been  greatly,  I  may  say  mainly,  concerned  with  young 
children.  For  the  dominating  thought  has  been  that  the 
young  human  being  is  an  undeveloped  organism,  and  that 
in  education  that  organism  is  developed.  So  the  essence  of 
Pestalozzianism  lies  not  so  much  in  its  method  as  in  its  aim, 
not  mc>re  m  what  it  does  than  in  what  it  endeavours  to  do. 


PESTALOZZI.  355 


True  dignity  of  man. 


§  85.  (And  thus  it  was  that  Pestalozzi  (in  Raumer's 
words)  "  compelled  the  scholastic  world  to  revise  the  whole 
of  their  task,  to  reflect  on  the  nature  and  destiny  of  man, 
and  also  on  the  proper  way  of  leading  him  from  his  youth 
towards  that  destiny."  And  it  was  his  love  of  his  fellow- 
creatures  that  raised  him  to  this  standpoint.  He  was  moved 
by  "the  enthusiasm  of  humanity."y  Consumed  with  grief 
for  the  degradation  of  the  Swiss  peasantry,  he  never  lost 
faith  in  their  true  dignity  as  men,  and  in  the  possibility  of 
raising  them  to  a  condition  worthy  of  it.  He  cast  about  for 
the  best  means  of  thus  raising  them,  and  decided  that  it 
could  be  effected,  not  by  any  improvement  in  their  outward 
circumstances,  but  by  an  education  which  should  make  them 
what  their  Creator  intended  them  to  be,  and  should  give 
them  the  use  and  the  consciousness  of  all  their  inborn 
faculties.  "  From  my  youth  up,"  he  says,  "  I  felt  what  a 
high  and  indispensable  human  duty  it  is  to  labour  for  the 
poor  and  miserable ;  .  .  .  that  he  may  attain  to  a 
consciousness  of  his  own  dignity  through  his  feeling  of  the 
universal  powers  and  endowments  which  he  possesses 
awakened  within  him ;  that  he  may  not  only  learn  to  gabble 
over  by  rote  the  religious  maxim  that  '  man  is  created  in 
the  image  of  God,  and  is  bound  to  Uve  and  die  as  a  child 
of  God,'  but  may  himself  experience  its  truth  by  virtue  of 
the  Divine  power  within  him,  so  that  he  may  be  raised,  not 
only  above  the  ploughing  oxen,  but  also  above  the  man  in 
purple  and  silk  who  lives  unworthily  of  his  high  destiny  " 
(Quoted  in  Barnard,  p.  13). 

Again  he  says  (and  I  quote  at  length  on  the  point,  as  it 
is  indeed  the  key  to  Pestalozzianism),  "  Why  have  I  msisted 
so  strongly  on  attention  to  early  physical  and  intellectual 
education  ?     Because  I  consider  these  as  merely  leadmg  to 


356  PESTALOZZI. 


Education  for  all.   Mothers'  part.  Jacob's  Ladder. 

a  higher  aim,  to  qualify  the  human  being  for  the  free  and 
full  use  of  all  the  faculties  implanted  by  the  Creator,  and 
to  direct  all  these  faculties  towards  the  perfection  of  the 
whole  being  of  man,  that  he  may  be  enabled  to  act  in 
his  peculiar  station  as  an  instrument  of  that  All-wise  and 
Almighty  Power  that  has  called  him  into  life "  (To 
Greaves,  p.  i6o). 

§  86.  Believing  in  this  high  aim  of  education,  Pestalozzi 
required  a  proper  early  training  for  all  alike.  "Every 
human  being," said  he,  "has  a  claim  to  a  judicious  develop- 
ment of  his  faculties  by  those  to  whom  the  care  of  his 
infancy  is  confided"  (^Ib.  p.  163). 

§  87.  Pestalozzi  therefore  most  earnestly  addressed  him- 
self to  mothers,  to  convince  them  of  the  power  placed  in 
their  hands,  and  to  teach  them  how  to  use  it.  "The 
mother  is  qualified,  and  qualified  by  the  Creator  Himself, 
to  become  the  principal  agent  in  the  development  of  her 
child ;  .  .  .  and  what  is  demanded  of  her  is — a  thinking 
love.  .  .  .  God  has  given  to  thy  child  all  the  faculties 
of  our  nature,  but  the  grand  point  remains  undecided — how 
shall  this  heart,  this  head,  these  hands,  be  employed  ?  to 
whose  service  shall  they  be  dedicated?  A  question  the 
answer  to  which  involves  a  futurity  of  happiness  or  misery  to 
a  life  so  dear  to  thee.  .  .  .  It  is  recorded  that  God 
opened  the  heavens  to  the  patriarch  of  old,  and  showed  him 
a  ladder  leading  thither.  This  ladder  is  let  down  to  every 
descendant  of  Adam ;  it  is  offered  to  thy  child.  But  he 
must  be  taught  to  climb  it.  And  let  him  not  attempt  it  by 
the  cold  calculations  of  the  head,  or  the  mere  impulse  of 
the  heart;  but  let  all  these  powers  combine,  and  the  noble 
enterprise  will  be  crowned  with  success.  These  powers  are 
already  bestowed  on  him,  but  to  thee  it  is  giv^a  :o  assist  in 


PESTALOZZI.  357 


Educator  only  superintends. 


calling  them  forth"  (To  Greaves,  p.  21).  "Maternal  love 
is  the  iirst  agent  in  education.  .  .  .  Through  it  the 
child  is  led  to  love  and  trust  his  Creator  and  his  Redeemer.* 
§  88.  From  the  theory  of  development  which  lay  at  the 
root  of  Pestalozzi's  views  of  education,  it  followed  that  the 
imparting  of  knowledge  and  the  training  for  special  pursuits 
held  only  a  subordinate  position  in  his  scheme.  "  Educa- 
tion, instead  of  merely  considering  what  is  to  be  imparted 
to  children,  ought  to  consider  first  what  they  may  be  said 
already  to  possess,  if  not  as  a  developed,  at  least  as  an 
involved  faculty  capable  of  development.  Or  if,  instead  of 
speaking  thus  in  the  abstract,  we  will  but  recollect  that  it  is 
to  the  great  Author  of  life  that  man  owes  the  possession, 
and  is  responsible  for  the  use,  of  his  innate  faculties, 
education  should  not  simply  decide  what  is  to  be  made  of  a 
child,  but  rather  inquire  what  it  was  intended  that  he 
should  become.  What  is  his  destiny  as  a  created  and 
responsible  being  ?  What  are  his  faculties  as  a  rational  and 
moral  being  ?  What  are  the  means  for  their  perfection,  and 
the  end  held  out  as  the  highest  object  of  their  efforts  by  the 
Almighty  Father  of  all,  both  in  creation  and  in  the  page  of 
revelation  ?  " 

§  89.  Education,  then,  must  consist  "  in  a  continual 
benevolent  superintendence^  with  the  object  of  calling  forth  all 
the  faculties  which  Providence  has  implanted;  and  its 
province,  thus  enlarged,  will  yet  be  with  less  difficulty 
surveyed  from  one  point  of  view,  and  will  have  more  of  a 
systematic  and  truly  philosophical  character,  than  an  in- 
coherent mass  of  *  lessons ' — arranged  without  unity  of 
principle,  and  gone  through  without  interest — which  too 
often  usurps  its  name." 
('Ihe  educator's  task  then  is  to  superintend  and  promote 


358  PESTALOZZI. 


First,  moral  development. 


the  child's  development,  morally,  intellectually,  and  physi- 


cally.) 


90.  "The  essential  principle  of  education  is  not 
teaching,"  said  Pestalozzi ;  "it  is  love"  (R.'s  G.,  289). 
Again  he  says,  "The  child  loves  and  believes  before  it 
thinks  and  acts"  {lb.  378).  And  in  a  very  striking  passage 
{lb.  329),  where  he  compares  the  development  of  the 
various  powers  of  a  human  being  to  the  development  of  a 
tree,  he  says,  "  These  forces  of  the  heart — faith  and  love — • 
are  in  the  formation  of  immortal  man  what  the  root  is  for 
the  tree."  So,  according  to  Pestalozzi,  a  child  without  faith 
and  love  can  no  more  grow  up  to  be  what  he  should  be 
than  a  tree  can  grow  without  a  root.  Apart  from  this  vital 
truth  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  Pestalozzianism. 

"  Ah  yet  when  all  is  thought  and  said 
The  heart  still  overrules  the  head. " 

It  is  our  hearts  and  affections  that  lead  us  right  or  wrong 
far  more  than  our  intellects.  In  advocating  the  training  of 
the  minds  of  the  people,  Lord  Derby  once  remarked  that  as 
Chairman  of  Quarter  Sessions  he  had  found  most  of  the 
culprits  brought  before  him  were  stupid  and  ignorant.  It 
certainly  cannot  be  denied  that  the  commonest  kind  of 
criminal  is  bad,  in  every  way.  He  has  his  body  ruined 
by  debauchery,  his  intellect  almost  in  abeyance,  and  his 
heart  and  affections  set  on  what  is  vile  and  degrading.  If 
you  could  cultivate  his  intellect  you  would  certainly  raise 
him  out  of  the  lowest  and  by  far  the  largest  of  the  criminal 
classes.  But  he  might  become  a  criminal  of  a  type  less 
disgusting  in  externals,  but  in  reality  far  more  dangerous. 
The  most  atrocious  miscreant  of  our  time,  if  not  of  all  time, 
was  a  man  who  contrived  a  machine  to  sink  ships  in  mid- 
ocean,  his  only  object  being  to  gain  a  sum  of  money  on  a 


PESTALOZZI.  359 


Moral  and  religious  the  same. 


false  insurance.  This  man  was  a  type  of  the  'elite  of 
criminals,  had  received  an  intellectual  training,  and  could 
not  have  been  described  by  Lord  Derby  as  ignorant  or 
stupid. 

§  91.  (Pestalozzi  then,  much  as  he  valued  the  develop- 
ment of  the  intellect,  put  first  the  moral  and  religious 
influence  of  education ;  and  with  him  moral  and  religious 
were  one  and  the  same.  J  He  protested  against  the  ordinary 
routine  of  elementary  education,  because  "  everywhere  in  it 
the  flesh  predominated  over  the  spirit,  everywhere  the  divine 
element  was  cast  into  the  shade,  everywhere  selfishness  and 
the  passions  were  taken  as  the  motives  of  action,  everywhere 
mechanical  habits  usurped  the  place  of  intelligent  spon- 
taneity "  (R.'s  G.,  470).  Education  for  the  people  must  be 
different  to  this.  "  Man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone ; 
every  child  needs  a  religious  development ;  every  child 
needs  to  know  how  to  pray  to  God  in  all  simplicity, 
but  with  faith  and  love"  (R.'s  G.,  378).  "If  the  religious 
element  does  not  run  through  the  whole  of  education,  this 
element  will  have  little  influence  on  the  life;  it  remains 
formal  or  isolated  "*  (/^.  381).  And  Pestalozzi  sums  up  the 
essentials  of  popular  education  in  the  words :  "  The  child 

•  The  disciple  is  not  above  his  master,  and  if  parents  and  teachers  are 
without  sympathy  and  religious  feeling  the  children  will  also  be  without 
faith  and  love.  This  cannot  be  urged  too  strongly  on  those  who  have 
charge  of  the  young.  But  there  is  no  test  by  which  we  can  ascertain 
tha  I  a  master  has  these  essential  qualifications.  As  in  the  Christian 
ministry  the  unfit  can  be  shut  out  only  by  their  own  consciences.  But 
lei  no  one  think  to  understand  education  if  he  loses  sight  of  what  Joseph 
Payne  has  called  "  Pestalozzi's  simple  but  profound  discovery — the 
teacher  must  have  a  heart."  "Soul  is  kindled  only  by  soul,"  says 
Carlyle  ;  "  to  teach  religion  the  first  thing  needful  and  also  the  last  and 
only  thintj  is  finding  of  a  man  who  has  religion.     All  else  follows." 


360  PESTALOZZI. 


Second,  intellectual  development. 

accustomed  from  his  earliest  years  to  pray,  to  think,  and  to 
work,  is  already  more  than  half  educated  "  i^Ib.  381). 

§  92.  Here  we  see  the  main  requisites.  First  the  child 
must  pray  with  faith  and  love.     Next  he  must  think. 

"  The  child  must  think ! "  exclaims  the  schoolmaster : 
"  Must  he  not  learn  ?  "  To  which  Pestalozzi  would  have 
replied,  "  Most  certainly  he  must."  Learning  was  not  in 
Pestalozzi's  estimation  as  in  Locke's,  the  "  last  and  least " 
thing,  but  learning  was  with  him  something  very  different 
from  the  learning  imparted  by  the  ordinary  schoolmaster. 
Pestalozzi  was  very  imperfectly  acquainted  with  the  thoughts 
and  efforts  of  his  predecessors,  but  the  one  book  on  educa- 
tion which  he  had  studied  had  freed  him  from  the  "idols  " 
of  the  schoolroom.  This  book  was  the  Emile  of  Rousseau, 
and  from  it  he  came  no  less  than  Rousseau  himself  to  despise 
the  learning  of  the  schoolmaster.  But  when  he  had  to  face 
the  problem  of  organizing  a  course  of  education  for  the 
people,  Pestalozzi  did  not  agree  with  Rousseau  that  the 
first  twelve  years  should  be  spent  in  "  losing  time."  No, 
the  children  must  learn,  but  they  must  learn  in  such  a  way 
as  to  develop  all  the  powers  of  the  mind.  And  so  Pestalozzi 
was  led  to  what  he  considered  his  great  discovery,  viz.,  that 
all  instruction  must  be  based  on  "  Anschauung." 

§  93.  The  Germans,  who  have  devoted  so  much  thought 
and  care  and  effort  to  education,  greatly  honour  Pestalozzi,* 
and  as  his  disciples  aim  at  making  all  elementary  instruction 


*  In  1872,  a  Congress  in  which  more  than  10,000  German  elementary 
teachers  were  represented,  petitioned  the  Prussian  Government  for  "  the 
organization  of  training  schools  in  accordance  with  the  pedagogic 
principles  of  Pestalozzi,  which  formerly  enjoyed  so  much  favour  10 
Prussia  and  so  visibly  contributed  to  the  regeneraiion  of  the  country.'' 


PESTALOZZI.  361 


Learning  by  "intuition." 


"  anschaulich."  We  English  have  troubled  ourselves  so 
little  about  Pestalozzi,  or,  I  might  say,  about  the  theory  of 
education,  that  we  have  not  cared  to  get  equivalent  words 
for  Anschauung  and  anschaulich.  For  Anschauung  "sense- 
impression  "  has  lately  been  tried ;  but  this  is  in  two  ways 
defective;  for  (i)  there  may  be  "  Anschauungen  "  beyond 
the  range  of  the  senses,  and  (2)  there  is  in  an  "  Anschauung  " 
an  active  as  well  as  a  passive  element,  and  this  the  word 
"  impression  "  does  not  convey.  The  active  part  is  brought 
out  better  by  '  observation  " — the  word  used  by  Joseph 
Payne  and  James  MacAlister ;  but  this  seems  hardly  wide 
enough.  Other  writers  of  English  borrow  words  straight  from 
the  French,  and  talk  about  "intuition"  and  "intuitive," 
words  which  were  taken  (first  I  believe  by  Kant)  from  the 
Latin  intueri,  "  to  look  at  with  attention  and  reflection!'^ 

§  94.  I  think  we  shall  be  wise  in  following  these  writers. 
On  good  authority  I  have  heard  of  a  German  professor  who 
when  asked  if  he  had  read  some  large  work  recently  pub- 
lished in  the  distressing  type  of  his  nation,  replied  that  he 
had  not ;  he  was  waiting  for  a  French  translation.  If  the 
Germans  find  that  the  French  express  their  thoughts  more 
clearly  than  they  can  themselves,  we  may  think  ourselves 
fortunate  when  the  French  will  act  as  interpreters.  I  there- 
fore gladly  turn  to  M.  Buisson  and  translate  what  he  says 
about  "  intuition." 

"Intuition  is  just  the  most  natural  and  most  spon- 
taneous action  of  human  intelligence,  the  action  by  which 
the  mind  seizes  a  reality  without  effort,  hesitation,  or 
go-between.  It  is  a  '  direct  apperception,'  made  as  it  were 
at  a  glance.  If  it  has  to  do  with  some  matter  within  the 
province  of  the  senses,  the  senses  perceive  it  at  once.  Here 
w^e  have  the  simplest  case  of  all,  the  most  common,  the 


362  PESTALOZZI. 


Buisson  and  Jullien  on  intuition. 

most  easily  noted.  If  the  thing  concerned  is  an  idea,  9 
reality,  that  is,  beyond  the  reach  of  the  senses,  we  still  say 
that  we  seize  it  by  intuition  when  all  that  is  necessary  is  that 
it  present  itself  to  the  mind,  and  the  mind  at  once  grasps 
it  and  is  satisfied  with  it  without  any  need  of  proof  or 
investigation.  We  advance  by  intuition  whenever  our  mind, 
acting  by  the  senses,  or  by  the  judgment,  or  by  the  con- 
science, knows  things  with  the  same  amount  of  evidence  and 
the  same  amount  of  speed  that  a  distinct  view  of  an  object 
affords  the  eye.  So  intuition  is  no  separate  faculty ;  it  is 
nothing  strange  or  new  in  the  mind  of  man.  It  is  just  the 
mind  itself  '  intuitively  '  recognising  what  exists  in  it  or 
around  it"  {Les  Cotiferences  Fed.  faites  aux  Irisiihiteurs, 
Delagrave,  1879,  p.  331).  So  the  "intuitive  method"  (to 
keep  the  French  name  for  it)  is  of  very  wide  application. 
"  It  appeals  to  this  force  sui  generis,  to  this  glance  of  the 
mind,  to  this  spontaneous  spring  of  the  intelligence  towards 
truth."  It  sets  the  pupil's  mind  to  work  in  following  his 
own  intellectual  instincts.  If  in  our  teaching  we  can  use  it, 
we  shall  have  gained,  as  M.  Buisson  says,  the  best  helper  in  the 
world,  viz.,  the  pupil.  If  he  can  be  got  to  take  an  active 
part  in  the  instruction  all  difficulty  vanishes  at  once.  Instead 
of  having  to  drag  him  along,  you  will  see  him  delighted  to 
keep  you  company. 

§  95.  According  to  M,  Buisson  there  are  three  kinds  of 
intuition — sensuous,  intellectual,  and  moral.  Similarly  M. 
JuUien  {Esprit  de  Pestalozzi^  1812,  vol.  j,  p.  152)  says  that 
there  are  "intuitions  "of  the  "internal  senses"  as  well  as 
of  the  external:  the  "internal  senses"  are  four  in  number: 
first,  the  sense  for  the  true ;  second,  the  sense  for  the  beauti- 
ful ;  third,  the  sense  for  the  good ;  fourth,  the  sense  for  the 
infinite. 


PESTALOZZI.  363 


Pestalozzi  and  Locke. 


§  96.  Without  settling  whether  this  analysis  is  complete 
wa  shall  have  no  difficulty  in  admitting  that  both  body  and 
mind  have  faculties  by  means  of  which  we  apprehend,  lay 
hold  of,  what  is  true  and  right ;  and  it  is  on  the  use  of  these 
faculties  that  Pestalozzi  bases  instruction.  No  Englishman 
may  have  found  a  good  word  to  indicate  Anschamms;,  but  one 
Englishman  at  least  had  the  idea  of  it  long  before  Pestalozzi. 
More  than  a  century  earlier  Locke  had  called  knowledge 
"  the  internal  perception  of  the  mind."  "  Knowing  is  see- 
ing," said  he ;  "  and  if  it  be  so,  it  is  madness  to  persuade 
ourselves  we  do  so  by  another  man's  eyes,  let  him  use  never 
so  many  words  to  tell  us  that  what  he  asserts  is  very 
visible  "  {Supra  p.  222). 

§  97.  Thus  in  theory  Pestalozzi  was,  however  unconsci- 
ously, a  follower  of  Locke.  But  in  practice  they  went  far 
asunder.  Locke's  thoughts  were  constantly  occupied  with 
philosophical  investigations,  and  he  seems  to  have  made 
small  account  of  the  intellectual  power  of  children,  and  to 
have  supposed  that  they  cannot  "  see  "  anything  at  all.  So 
he  cared  little  what  was  taught  them,  and  till  they  reached 
the  age  of  reason  the  tutor  might  give  such  lessons  as, 
would  be  useful  to  "  young  gentlemen,"  the  avowed  object 
being  to  "keep  them  from  sauntering."  His  follower 
Rousseau  preferred  that  the  child's  mind  should  not  be 
filled  with  the  traditional  lore  of  the  schoolroom,  and  that 
the  instructor,  when  the  youth  reached  the  age  of  twelve, 
should  find  "an  unfurnished  apartment  to  let."  Then  came 
Pestalozzi,  and  he  saw  that  at  whatever  age  the  instructor 
began  to  teach  the  child,  he  would  not  find  an  unfurnished 
apartment,  seeing  that  every  child  learns  continuously  from 
the  hour  of  its  birth.  And  how  does  the  child  learn  ?  Not 
by  repeating  words  which  express  the  thoughts,  feelings,  and 


364  PESTALOZZI. 


Subjects  for,  and  art  of,  teaching. 

experiences  of  other  people,*  but  by  his  own  experiences 
and  feelings,  and  by  the  thoughts  which  these  suggest  to 
him. 

§  98/  Elementary  education  then  on  its  intellectual  side 
is  teachmg  the  child  to  think.  The  proper  subjects  of 
thought  for  children  Pestalozzi  held  to  be  the  children's 
surroundings,  the  realities  of  their  own  lives,  the  things  that 
affect  them  and  arouse  their  feelings  and-interests.^  Perhaps 
he  did  not  emphasize  interest  as  much  as  Herbart  has  done 
since ;  but  clearly  an  Anschaming  or  "  intuition "  is  only 
possible  when  the  child  is  interested  in  the  thing  observed. 

§  99.  Q'he  art  of  teaching  in  Pestalozzi's  system  consists 
in  analyzing  the  knowledge  that  the  children  should  acquire 
about  their  surroundings,  arranging  it  in  a  regular  sequence, 
and  bringing  it  to'  the  children's  consciousness  gradually  and 
in  the  way  in  which  their  minds  will  act  upon  it.  In  this 
way  they  learn  slowly,  but  all  they  learn  is  their  own.^ 
They  are  not  like  the  crow  drest  up  in  peacock's  feathers,  for 

*  Did  Pestalozzi  make  due  allowance  foi  the  system  of  thought  which 
every  child  inherits?  Croom  Robertson  in  "How  we  came  by  our 
Knowledge"  {^Nineteenth  Century,  No.  I,  March,  1877),  without  men 
tioning  Pestalozzi,  seems  to  differ  from  him.  Croom  Robertson  says 
that  "  Children  being  born  into  the  world  are  born  into  society,  and  are 
acted  on  by  overpowering  social  influences  before  they  have  any  chance 
of  being  their  proper  selves.  .  .  .  The  words  and  sentences  that 
fall  upon  a  child's  ear  and  are  soon  upon  his  lips,  express  not  so  much 
his  subjective  experience  as  the  common  experience  of  his  kind,  which 
becomes  as  it  were  an  objective  rule  or  measure  to  which  his  shall 
coniorm.  .  .  .  He  does,  he  must,  accept  what  he  is  told  ;  and  in 
general  he  is  only  too  glad  to  find  his  own  experience  in  accordance 
with  it.  .  .  .  We  use  our  incidental,  by  which  I  mean  our  natural 
subjective  experience,  mainly  to  decipher  and  verify  the  ready-made 
scheme  of  knowledge  that  is  given  us  en  bloc  with  the  words  of  our 
mother-tongue "  (pp.  117,  118). 


PESTALOZZI.  365 


"  Mastery." 


they  have  not  appropriated  any  dead  knowledge  ("  angelernte 
todte  Begriffe"  as  Diesterweg  has  it),  and  it  cannot  be  said 
of  them,  "  They  know  about  much,  but  know  nothing  {Sie 
kennen  viel  und  tvissen  nichts)."  Their  knowledge  is  actual 
knowledge,  for  they  are  taught  not  what  to  think  but  to 
think,  and  to  exercise  their  powers  of  observation  and  draw 
conclusions  from  their  own  experience.  The  teacher 
simply  furnishes  materials  and  occasions  for  this  exercise 
in  observing,  and  as  it  goes  on  gives  his  benevolent  super- 
intendence. 

§  100.  They  learn  slowly  for  another  reason.  Accord- 
ing to  Pestalozzi  the  first  conceptions  must  be  dwelt  upon 
till  they  are  distinct  and  firmly  fixed.  Buss  tells  us  that 
when  he  first  joined  Pestalozzi  at  Burgdorf  the  delay  over 
the  prime  elements  seemed  to  him  a  waste  of  time,  but 
that  afterwards  he  was  convinced  of  its  being  the  right  plan, 
and  felt  that  the  failure  of  his  own  education  was  due  to  its 
incoherent  and  desultory  character.  "Not  only,"  says 
Pestalozzi,  "  have  the  first  elements  of  knowledge  in  every 
subject  the  most  important  bearing  on  its  complete  outline, 
but  the  child's  confidence  and  interest  are  gained  by  perfect 
attainment  even  in  the  lowest  stage  of  instruction."  ♦ 


*  One  of  the  most  interesting  and  most  difficult  problems  in  teaching 
is  this : — How  long  should  the  beginner  be  kept  to  the  rudiments  ? 
With  young  children,  to  whom  ideas  come  fast,  the  main  thing  is  nc 
doubt  to  take  care  that  these  ideas  become  distinct  and  are  made  "the 
intellectual  property"  of  the  learners.  But  after  a  year  or  two 
chil  Iren  will  be  impatient  to  "get  on,"  and  if  they  seem  "marking 
lime"  will  be  bored  and  discouraged.  Then  again  in  some  subjects 
the  elementary  parts  seem  clear  only  to  those  who  have  a  conception  of 
the  whole.  As  Diderot  says  in  a  passage  I  have  seen  quoted  from  Le 
Neveu  de  Rameau,  "  II  faut  6tre  profond  dans  I'art  ou  dans  la  science 
26 


366  PESTALOZZI. 


The  body's  part  in  education. 


§  loi.  We  have  seen  that  Pestalozzi  would  ha\e 
(hildren  learn  to  pray,  to  think,  and  to  work.  In  schools 
for  the  soi-disant  "  upper  classes  "  the  parents  or  friends  :•( 
a  boy  sometimes  say,  "There  is  no  need  for  him  to  woilc 
he  will  be  very  well  off."  From  this  kind  of  demoralization 
Pestalozzi's  pupils  were  free.  They  would  "have  to  work, 
and  Pestalozzi  wished  them  to  learn  to  work  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible. In  this  way  he  sought  to  increase  their  self-respect, 
and  to  unite  their  school-life  with  their  life  beyond  it.* 

§  I02.  Pestalozzi  was  tremendously  in  earnest,  and  he 
wished  the  children  also  to  take  instruction  seriously.  He 
was  totally  opposed  to  the  notion  which  had  found  favour 
with  many  great  authorities  as  eg.,  Locke  and  Basedow, 
that  instruction  should  always  be  given  in  the  guise  of 
amusement.      "I  am  convinced,"  says  he,  "that  such  a 

pour  en  bien  posseder  les  Elements."  "  C'est  le  milieu  at  la  fin  qui 
eclaircissent  les  tenebres  du  commencement."  The  greatest  "coach  '' 
in  Cambridge  used  to  "rush"  his  men  through  their  subjects  and 
then  go  back  again  for  thorough  learning.  To  be  sure,  the  "scientific 
method  "  suitable  for  young  men  differs  greatly  from  the  "heuristic"  or 
"method  of  investigation,"  which  is  best  for  children.  (See  Joseph 
Payne's  Lecture  on  Pestalozzi.)  But  even  with  children  we  should  bear 
in  mind  Niemeyer's  caution,  "  Thoroughness  itself  may  become  super- 
ficial by  exaggeration  ;  for  it  may  keep  too  long  to  a  part  and  in  this 
way  fail  to  complete  and  give  any  notion  of  the  whole"  (Quoted 
by  O.  Fischer,  VVichtigste  Pad.  213). 

*  Nearly  20  years  ago  (1871)  appeared  a  paper  on  "Elementary 
National  Education  "  in  which  "John  Parkin,  M.D.,"  advocated  making 
all  our  elementary  schools  industrial,  not  only  for  practical  purposes, 
but  still  more  for  the  sake  of  physical  education.  The  paper  attracted 
no  notice  at  the  time,  but  now  we  are  beginning  to  see  that  the  body  is 
concerned  in  education  as  well  as  the  mind,  and  that  the  mind  learns 
through  it  "  without  book. "  The  application  of  this  truth  will  bring 
about  many  changes. 


PESTALOZZI.  367 


Learning  must  not  be  play. 


notion  will  for  ever  preclude  solidity  of  knowledge,  and,  for 
want  of  sufficient  exertions  on  the  part  of  the  pupils,  will 
lead  to  that  very  result  which  I  wish  to  avoid  by  my 
piinciple  of  a  constant  employment  of  the  thinking  powers. 
Actild  must  very  early  in  life  be  taught  the  lesson  thnt 
exertion  is  indispensable  for  the  attainment  of  knowledge"* 
(To  G.,  xxiv,  p.  1 17).  But  he  should  be  taught  at  the  same 
time  that  exertion  is  not  an  evil,  and  he  should  be  encouraged, 
not  frightened,  into  it.  Healthy  exertion,  whether  of  body 
or  mind,  is  always  attended  with  a  feeling  of  satisfaction 
amounting  to  pleasure,  and  where  this  pleasure  is  absent  the 
instructor  has  failed  in  producing  proper  exertion.  As 
Pestalozzi  says,  "Whenever  children  are  inattentive  and 
apparently  take  no  interest  in  a  lesson,  the  teacher  should 
always  first  look  to  himself  for  the  reason  "f  {Jb.). 

*  Herliart,  when  he  visited  Pestalozzi  at  Burgdorf,  observed  that 
though  Pestalozzi's  kindness  was  apparent  to  all,  he  took  no  pains  in  his 
teaching  to  mix  the  dulce  with  the  utile.  He  never  talked  to  the  children, 
or  joked,  or  gave  them  an  anecdote.  This,  however,  did  not  surprise 
Herbart,  whose  own  experience  had  taught  him  that  when  the  subject 
requires  earnest  attention  the  children  do  not  like  it  the  better  for  the 
teacher's  "fun."  "The  feeling  of  clear  apprehension,"  says  he,  "I 
held  to  .be  the  only  genuine  condiment  of  instruction  "  (Herbart's  Pad. 
Schriften,  ed.  by  O.  Willmann,  j.  89). 

+  First  look  to  himself,  but  there  may  be  other  causes  of  failure  aj- 
well.  The  great  thing  is  never  to  put  up  contentedly,  or  even  discon 
tentedly,  with  failure.  In  teaching  classes  of  lads  from  ten  to  sixteen 
years  old,  when  I  have  found  the  lessons  in  any  subject  were  not  going 
wt'U,  I  have  sometimes  taken  the  class  into  my  confidence,  told  them 
that  they  no  doubt  felt  as  I  did  that  this  lesson  was  a  dull  one,  and 
asked  them  each  to  put  on  paper  what  he  considered  to  be  the  reasons, 
and  also  to  make  any  suggestions  that  occurred  to  him.  In  this  way  I 
have  got  some  very  good  hints,  and  I  have  always  been  helped  in  my 
effort  to  understand  how  the  work  seemed  to  the  pupils.    Every  teache? 


368  PESTALOZZI. 


Singing  and  drawing. 


§  103.  (But  though  he  took  so  serious  a  view  of  instruc- 
tion, he  made  instruction  include  and  indeed  give  a  promi- 
nent place  to  the  arts  of  singing  and  drawing.^  In  the 
Pestalozzian  schools  singing  found  immense  favour  with  both 
the  masters  and  the  pupils,  and  the  collection  of  songs  by 
Nageli,  a  master  at  Yverdun,  became  famous.  Drawing  too 
was  practised  by  all.  As  Pestalozzi  writes  to  Greaves  (xxiv, 
117),  "A  person  who  is  in  the  habit  of  drawing,  especially 
from  nature,  will  easily  perceive  many  circumstances  which 
are  commonly  overlooked,  and  will  form  a  much  more  correct 
impression  even  of  such  objects  as  he  does  not  stop  to 
examine  minutely,  than  one  who  has  never  been  taught  to 
look  upon  what  he  sees  with  an  intention  of  reproducing  a 
likeness  of  it.  The  attention  to  the  exact  shape  of  the 
whole  and  the  proportion  of  the  parts,  which  is  requisite  for 
the  taking  of  an  adequate  sketch,  is  converted  into  a  habit, 
and  becomes  productive  both  of  instruction  and  amuse- 
ment." 

§  104.  I  have  now  endeavoured  to  point  out  the  main 
features  of  Pestalozzianism.  The  following  is  the  summing 
up  of  these  features  given  by  Morf  in  his  Contribution  to 
Pestalozzi's  Biography : — 

I.  Instruction  must  be  based  on  the  learner's  own 
experience.  (Das  Fundament  des  Unterrichts  ist 
die  Anschauung.) 


should  make  this  effort.  As  Pestalozzi  says,  "  Could  we  conceive  the 
indescribable  tedium  which  must  oppress  the  young  mind  while  the 
weary  hours  are  slowly  passing  away  one  after  another  in  occupations 
which  it  can  neither  relish  nor  understand  ...  we  should  no 
longer  be  surprised  at  the  remissness  of  the  schoolboy  creeping  like 
snail  unwillingly  to  school  "  (To  G.,  xxx,  150). 


PESTALOZZI.  369 

Morf  s  summing-up. 

2.  What  the  learner  experiences  and  observes  must  be 

connected  witli  language. 

3.  The  time  for  learning  is  not  the  time  for  judging,  not 

the  time  for  criticism. 

4.  In  every  department  instruction  must  begin  with  the 

simplest  elements,  and  starting  from  these  must 
be  carried  on  step  by  step  according  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  child,  that  is,  it  must  be  brought  into 
psychological  sequence. 
5  At  each  jwint  the  instructor  shall  not  go  forward  till 
that  part  of  the  subject  has  become  the  proper 
intellectual  possession  of  the  learner. 

6.  Instruction  must  follow  the  path  of  development,  not 

the  path  of  lecturing,  teaching,  or  telling. 

7.  To  the  educator  the  individuality  of  the  child  must  be 

sacred. 

8.  Not  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  or  skill  is  the  main 

object  of  elementary  instruction,  but  the  development 
and  strengthening  of  the  powers  of  the  mind. 

9.  With  knowledge  ( IVissen)  must  come  power  {K6nnen\ 

with  information  (Kenntniss)  skill  {Fertigkeit). 

10.  Intercourse  between  educator  and  pupil,  and  school 

discipline  especially,  must  be  based  on  and  controlled 
by  love. 

1 1.  Instruction  shall  be  subordinated  to  the  aim  of  educa- 

tion. 
X  2.  The  ground  of  moral-religious  bringing  up  lies  in  the 
relation  of  mother  and  child.* 

*  With  Morfs  summing-up  it  is  interesting  to  ompare  Joseph  Payne's, 
given  at  the  end  of  his  lecture  on  Pestalozzi : 

I.  The  principles  of  education  are  not  to  be  devised  ai  extra  ;  they 
•ic  to  be  sought  for  in  human  nature. 


370  PESTALOZZI. 


Joseph  Payne's  summing-up. 


§  105.  Having  now  seen  in  which  direction  Pestalozzi 
would  start  the  school-coach,  let  us  examine  (with  reference 

II.  This  nature  is  an  organic  nature — a  plexus  of  bodily,  intellectual 
and  moral  capabilities,  ready  for  development,  and  struggling  to  develop 
themselves. 

III.  The  education  conducted  by  the  formal  educator  has  both  a 
negative  and  a  positive  side.  The  negative  function  of  the  educator 
consists  in  removing  impediments,  so  as  to  afford  free  scope  for  the 
learner's  self-development.  His  positive  function  is  to  stimulate  the 
learner  to  the  exercise  of  his  powers,  to  furnish  materials  and  occasion 
for  the  exercise,  and  to  superintend  and  maintain  the  action  of  the 
machinery. 

IV.  Self-development  begins  with  the  impressions  received  by  the 
mind  from  external  objects.  These  impressions  (called  sensations), 
when  the  mind  becomes  conscious  of  them,  group  themselves  into  per- 
ceptions. These  are  registered  in  the  mind  as  conceptions  or  ideas,  and 
constitute  that  elementary  knowledge  which  is  the  basis  of  all  know- 
ledge. 

V.  Spontaneity  and  self-activity  are  the  necessary  conditions  under 
which  the  mind  educates  itself  and  gains  power  and  independence. 

VI.  Practical  aptness  or  faculty,  depends  more  on  habits  gained  by 
the  assiduous  oft-repeated  exercise  of  the  learner's  active  powers  than  on 
knowledge  alone.  Knowing  and  doing  ( Wissen  und  Konnen)  must, 
however,  proceed  together.  The  chief  aim  of  all  education  (including 
instruction)  is  the  development  of  the  learner's  powers. 

VII.  All  education  (including  instruction)  must  be  grounded  on  the 
learner's  own  observation  {Atischauung)  at  first  hand — on  his  own 
personal  experience.  This  is  the  true  basis  of  all  his  knowledge.  First 
the  reality,  then  the  symbol ;  first  the  thing,  then  the  word,  not  z>icg 
versd. 

VIII.  That  which  the  learner  has  gained  by  his  own  observation 
(Anschauufig)  and  which,  as  a  part  of  his  personal  experience,  is  incor- 
porated with  his  mind,  he  knoivs  and  can  describe  or  explain  in  his  own 
words.  His  competency  to  do  this  is  the  measure  of  the  accuracy  oi 
his  observation,  and  consequently  of  his  knowledge. 

IX.  Personal  experience  necessitates  the  advancement  of  the  learner's 
mind  from  the  near  and  actual,  with  which  he  is  in  contact,  and  which 


PESTALOZZI.  371 


The  "two  nations."    Mother's  lessons. 

to  England  only)  the  direction  in  which  it  is  travelling  at 
present. 

§  1 06.  For  educational  purposes  we  may,  with  Lord 
Beaconsfield,  regard  the  English  as  composed  of  two  nations, 
the  rich  and  the  poor.     Let  us  consider  these  separately. 

In  the  case  of  the  rich  we  find  that  the  worst  part  of  our 
educational  course — the  part  most  wrong  in  theory  and 
pernicious  in  practice — is  the  schooling  of  young  children, 
say  between  six  and  twelve  years  old.  Before  the  age  of 
six  some  few  are  fortunate  enough  to  attend  a  good  Kinder- 
garten ;  but  the  opportunity  of  doing  this  is  at  present  rare, 
and  for  most  children  of  well-to-do  parents  there  is,  up  to 
six  years  old,  little  or  no  organised  instruction.  Pestalozzi 
would  have  every  mother  made  capable  of  giving  such 
instruction.  Froebel  would  have  every  child  sent  to  a 
skilled  "  Kindergartnerin."  It  seems  to  me  beyond  question 
that  children  gain  immensely  from  joining  a  properly-managed 
Kindergarten  ;  but  where  this  is  impossible,  perhaps  the 
mother  may  leave  the  child  to  the  series  of  impressions 
which  come  to  its  senses  without  any  regular  order.  Ac- 
cording to  the  first  Lord  Lytton,  the  mother's  interference 
might  remind  us  of  the  mjyi  who  thought  his  bees  would 
make  honey  faster  if,  instead  of  going  in  search  of  flowers, 
they  were  shut  up  and  had  flowers  brought  to  them.    The  way 

he  can  deal  with  himself,  to  the  more  remote ;  therefore  from  the 
concrete  to  the  abstract,  from  particulars  to  generals,  from  the  known 
li)  the  unknown.  This  is  the  method  of  elementary  education;  the 
opposite  proceeding — the  usual  proceeding  of  our  traditional  teaching — 
leads  the  mind  from  the  abstract  to  the  concrete,  from  generals  to 
particulars,  from  the  unknown  to  the  known.  This  latter  is  the 
Scientific  method — a  method  suited  only  to  the  advanced  learner,  who 
it  assumes  is  already  trained  by  the  Elementary  method. 


372  PESTALOZZI. 


Mistakes  in  teaching  children. 


in  which  young  children  turn  from  object  to  object,  like  the 
bees  from  flower  to  flower,  seems  to  show  that  at  this  stage 
their  intellectual  training  goes  on  whether  we  help  it  or  not. 
There  is  no  doubt  an  education  for  children  however  young, 
and  the  motlier  is  the  teacher,  but  the  lessons  have  more  to 
do  with  the  heart  than  the  head. 

§  107.  But  the  time  for  regular  teaching  comes  at  last, 
and  what  is  to  be  done  then  ?  Let  us  consider  briefly  what 
is  done. 

Hitherto,  the  only  defence  ever  made  of  our  school-course 
leading  up  to  residence  at  a  University,  has  been  that  it 
aims  not  at  giving  knowledge  but  at  training  the  mind. 
Youths  then  are  supposed  to  be  engaged,  not  in  gaining 
knowledge,  but  in  training  their  faculties  for  adult  life.  But 
when  we  come  to  provide  for  the  "  education  "  of  children, 
we  never  think  of  training  their  faculties  for  youth,  but 
endeavour  solely  to  inculcate  what  will  then  come  in  useful. 
We  see  clearly  enough  that  it  would  be  absurd  to  cram  the 
mind  of  a  youth  with  laws  of  science  or  art  or  commerce 
which  he  could  not  understand,  on  the  ground  that  the 
getiing-up  of  these  things  might  save  him  trouble  in  after- 
life. But  we  do  not  hesitate  to  sacrifice  childhood  to  the 
learning  by  heart  of  grammar  rules,  Latin  declensions, 
historical  dates,  and  the  like,  with  no  thought  whatever  of 
the  child's  faculties,  but  simply  with  a  view  of  giving  him 
knowledge  (so-called)  that  will  come  in  useful  five  or  six 
years  afterwards.  We  do  not  treat  youths  thus,  probably 
because  we  have  more  sympathy  with  them,  or  at  least 
understand  them  better.  The  intellectual  life  to  which  the 
senses  and  the  imagination  are  subordinated  in  the  man 
has  already  begun  in  the  youth.  In  an  inferior  degree  he 
can  do  what  the  man  can  do,  and  understand  what  the  man 


PESTALOZZI.  373 


Children  and  their  teachers. 


can  understand.  He  has  already  some  notion  of  reasoning, 
and  abstraction,  and  generalisation.  But  with  the  child  it 
is  very  different.  His  active  faculties  may  be  said  almost 
to  differ  in  kind  from  a  man's.  He  has  a  feeling  for  the 
sensuous  world  which  he  will  lose  as  he  grows  up.  His 
strong  imagination,  under  no  control  of  the  reason,  is  con- 
stantly at  work  building  castles  in  the  air,  and  investing  the 
doll  or  the  puppet-show  with  ail  the  properties  of  the  things 
they  represent.  His  feelings  and  affections,  easily  excited, 
find  an  object  to  love  or  dislike  in  every  person  and  thing 
he  meets  with.  On  the  other  hand,  he  has  only  vague 
notions  of  the  abstract,  and  has  no  interest  except  in  actual 
known  persons,  animals,  and  things. 

§  1 08.  There  is,  then,  between  the  child  of  eight  or  nine 
and  the  youth  of  fourteen  or  fifteen  a  greater  difference  than 
between  the  youth  and  the  man  of  twenty ;  and  this  de- 
mands a  corresponding  difference  in  their  studies.  And 
yet,  as  matters  are  carried  on  now,  the  child  is  too  often 
kept  to  the  drudgery  of  learning  by  rote  mere  collections 
of  hard  words,  perhaps,  too,  in  a  foreign  language  :  and 
absorbed  in  the  present,  he  is  not  much  comforted  by  the 
teacher's  assurance  that  "  some  day  "  these  things  will  come 
in  useful. 

§  109.  How  to  educate  the  child  is  doubtless  the  most 
difficult  problem  of  all,  and  it  is  generally  allotted  to  those 
who  are  the  least  likely  to  find  a  satisfactory  solution. 

The  earliest  educator  of  the  children  of  many  rich  parents 
is  the  nursemaid — a  person  not  usually  distinguished  by 
either  intellectual  or  moral  excellence.*     At  an  early  age 

•  Most  parents  do  not  seem  to  think  with  Jean  Paul,  "  If  we 
regard  all  life  as  an  educational  institution,  a  circumnavigator  of  the 
world  is  less  influenced  by  all  the  nations  he  has  seen  than  by  his 
nurse."    {Levana,  quoted  in  Morley's  Rousseau.) 


374  PESTALOZZI. 

"  Preparatory  "  Schools. 

this  educator  is  superseded  by  the  Preparatory  School. 
Taken  as  a  body,  the  ladies  who  open  "  establishments  for 
young  gentlemen  "  cannot  be  said  to  hold  enlarged  views, 
or,  indeed,  any  views  whatever,  on  the  subject  of  education. 
Their  intention  is  not  so  much  to  cultivate  the  children's 
faculties  as  to  make  a  livelihood,  and  to  hear  no  complaints 
that  pupils  who  have  left  them  have  been  found  deficient 
in  the  expected  knowledge  by  the  master  of  the  next  school. 
If  anyone  would  investigate  the  sort  of  teaching  which  is 
considered  adapted  to  the  capacity  of  children  at  this  stage, 
let  him  look  into  a  standard  work  still  in  vogue  ("  Mang- 
nall's  Questions"),  from  which  the  young  of  both  sexes 
acquire  a  great  quantity  and  variety  of  learning ;  the  whole 
of  ancient  and  modern  history  and  biography,  together  with 
the  heathen  mythology,  the  planetary  system,  and  the  names 
of  all  the  constellations,  lying  very  compactly  in  about  300 
pages.* 

Unfortunately,  moreover,  from  the  gentility  of  these 
ladies,  their  scholars'  bodies  are  often  treated  in  preparatory 
schools  no  less  injuriously  than  their  minds.  It  may  be 
natural  in  a  child  to  use  his  lungs  and  delight  in  noise,  but 

*  I  will  quote  the  first  paragraph  of  this  work  which  is  still 
considered  mental  pabulum  suited  to  the  digestions  of  young  ladies  and 
children  : — 

^^  Name  some  of  the  most  Ancient  Kingdoms, — Chaldea,  Babylonia, 
Assyria,  China  in  Asia,  and  Egypt  in  Africa.  Nimrod,  the  grandson 
o:  Ham,  is  supposed  to  have  founded  the  first  of  these  B.c.  2221,  as 
well  as  the  famous  cities  of  Babylon  and  Nineveh  ;  his  kingdom  being 
within  the  fertile  plains  of  Chaldea,  Chalonitis,  and  Assyria,  was  of 
small  extent  compared  with  the  vast  empires  that  afterwards  arose 
from  it,  but  included  several  large  cities.  In  the  district  called 
Babylonia  were  the  cities  of  Babylon,  Barsita,  Idicarra,  and  Vologsia," 
&c..  &C. 


PESTALOZZI.  375 


Young  boys  ill  taught  at  school. 

this  can  hardly  be  considered  genteel^  so  the  tendency  is, 
as  far  as  possible,  suppressed.  It  is  found,  too,  that  if 
children  are  allowed  to  run  about  they  get  dirty  and  spoil 
their  clothes,  and  do  not  look  like  "  young  gentlemen,"  so 
they  are  made  to  take  exercise  in  a  much  more  genteel 
fashion,  walking  slowly  two-and-two,  with  gloves  on.* 

§  no.  At  nine  or  ten  years  old,  boys  are  commonly  put 
to  a  school  taught  by  masters.  Here  they  lose  sight  of 
their  gloves,  and  learn  the  use  of  their  limbs;  but  their 
minds  are  not  so  fortunate  as  their  bodies.  The  studies 
of  the  school  have  been  arranged  without  any  thought  of 
their  peculiar  needs.  The  youngest  class  is  generally  the 
largest,  often  much  the  largest,  and  it  is  handed  over  to 
the  least  competent  and  worst  paid  master  on  the  staff  of 
teachers.  The  reason  is,  that  little  boys  are  found  to  learn 
the  tasks  imposed  upon  them  very  slowly.  A  youth  or  a 
man  who  came  fresh  to  the  Latin  grammar  would  learn  in 
a  morning  as  much  as  the  master,  with  great  labour,  can 
;^et  into  children  in  a  week.  It  is  thought,  therefore,  that 
the  best  teaching  should  be  applied  where  it  will  have  the 
most  obvious  results.     If  anyone  were  to  say  to  the  manager 

*  I  shall  always  feel  gratitude  and  affection  for  the  two  old  ladies 
(sisters)  to  whom  I  was  entrusted  over  half  a  century  ago.  More 
truly  Christian  women  I  never  met  with.  But  of  the  science  and  art 
of  education  they  were  totally  ignorant ;  and  moreover  the  premises 
they  occupied  were  unfit  for  a  school.  As  all  the  boys  were  under  ten 
years  old,  it  will  seem  strange,  but  is  alas !  too  true,  that  there  were 
vices  among  them  which  are  supposed  to  be  unknown  to  children  and 
>\hich  if  discovered  would  have  made  the  old  ladies  close  their  school. 
The  want  of  subjects  in  which  the  children  can  take  a  healthy 
interest  will  in  a  great  measure  account  for  the  spread  of  evil  in  such 
schools.  On  this  point  some  mistresses  and  most  parents  are 
dangerously  ignorant. 


376  PESTALOZZL 


English  folk-schools  not  Pestalozzian. 

of  a  school,  "  The  master  who  takes  the  lowest  form  teaches 
badly,  and  the  children  learn  nothing";  he  would  perhaps 
say,  "  Very  likely ;  but  if  I  paid  a  much  higher  salary,  and 
got  a  better  man,  they  would  learn  but  little."  The  only 
thing  the  school-manager  thinks  of  is,  How  much  do  the 
little  boys  learn  of  what  is  taught  in  the  higher  forms? 
How  their  faculties  are  being  developed,  or  whether  they 
have  any  faculties  except  for  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic, 
and  for  getting  grammar-rules,  &c.  by  heart,  he  is  not  so 
"  unpraccical "  as  to  enquire. 

§  HI.  With  reference  to  the  education  of  the  first  of  our 
"two  nations,"  it  seems  then  pretty  clear  that  Pestalozzi 
would  require  that  the  school-coach  should  be  turned  and 
started  in  a  totally  diflferent  direction. 

§  112.  What  about  the  education  of  the  other  "  nation," 
a  nation  of  which  the  verb  "to  rule  "  has  for  many  centuries 
been  used  in  the  passive  voice,  but  can  be  used  in  that 
voice  no  longer  ?  A  century  ago,  with  the  partial  exception 
of  Scotland  and  Massachusetts,  there  was  no  such  thing  as 
school  education  for  the  people  to  be  found  anywhere  in 
Europe  or  America.  But  from  1789  onwards  power  has 
been  passing  more  and  more  from  the  few  to  the  many ; 
and  as  a  natural  consequence  folk-schools  (for  which  we 
have  not  yet  found  a  name)  have  become  of  vast  importance 
everywhere.  The  Germans,  as  we  have  seen,  have  been 
the  disciples  of  Pestalozzi,  and  their  elementary  education 
in  everything  bears  traces  of  his  ideas.  The  English  have 
organised  a  great  system  of  elementary  education  in  total 
ignorance  of  Pestalozzi.  As  usual,  we  seem  to  have  sup- 
posed that  the  right  system  would  come  to  us  "  in  sleep." 
But  has  it  come  ?  The  children  of  the  poor  are  now  com- 
pelled by  the  law  to  attend  an  elementary  school.     What 


PESTALOZZI  377 


Schools  judged  by  results. 


sort  of  an  education  has  the  law  there  provided  for  them  ? 
The  Education  Department  professes  to  measure  everything 
by  results.  Let  us  do  the  same.  Suppose  that  on  his 
leaving  school  we  wished  to  forecast  a  lad's  future.  What 
ihou'd  we  try  to  find  out  about  him  ?  No  doubt  we  should 
ask  what  he  knew ;  but  this  would  not  be  by  any  means 
the  main  thing.  His  skill  would  interest  us,  and  still  more 
would  his  state  of  health.  But  what  we  should  ask  first 
and  foremost  is  this,  Whom  does  he  love?  Whom  does 
he  admire  and  imitate  ?  What  does  he  care  about  ?  What 
interests  him  ?  It  is  only  when  the  answers  to  these  ques- 
tions are  satisfactory,  that  we  can  think  hopefully  of  his 
future ;  and  it  is  only  in  so  far  as  the  school-course  has 
tended  to  make  the  answers  satisfactory,  that  it  deserves 
our  approval.  Schools  such  as  Pestalozzi  designed  would 
have  thus  deserved  our  approval ;  but  we  cannot  say  this 
of  the  schools  into  which  the  children  of  the  English  poor 
are  now  driven.  In  these  schools  the  heart  and  the  affec- 
tions are  not  thought  of,  the  powers  of  neither  mind  nor 
body  are  developed  by  exercise,  and  the  children  do  not 
acquire  any  interests  that  will  raise  or  benefit  them. 

§  113.  An  advocate  of  our  system  would  not  deny  this, 
but  would  probably  say,  "  The  question  for  us  to  consider 
is,  not  what  is  the  best  that  in  the  most  favourable  circum- 
stances might  be  attempted,  but  what  is  the  best  that  in 
very  restricted  and  by  no  means  favourable  circumstances, 
we  are  likely  to  get.  The  teachers  in  our  schools  are  not 
self-devoting  Pestalozzis,  but  only  ordinary  men  and  women, 
and  still  worse,  ordinary  boys  and  girls.*     It  would  be  of 

*  Having  watched  the  "teaching"  of  pupil- teachers,  I  find  hat 
some  of  them  (I  may  say  many)  never  address  more  than  one  child  at 
a  time,  and  never  attempt  to  gain  the  attention  of  more  than  a  single 


3/8  PESTALOZZI. 

Pupil-teachers.    Teaching  not  educating. 

no  use  talking  to  our  teachers  (still  less  our  pupil-teachers) 
about  developing  the  affections  and  the  mental  or  bodily 
powers  of  the  children.  All  such  talk  could  end  in  nothing 
but  silly  cant.  As  for  character,  we  expect  the  school  to 
cultivate  in  the  children  habits  of  order,  neatness,  industry. 
Beyond  this  we  cannot  go." 

And  yet,  though  this  seems  reasonable,  we  feel  that  it  is 
not  quite  satisfactory.  If  so  much  depends  in  all  of  us  on 
"admiration,  hope,  and  love,"  we  can  hardly  consider  a 
system  of  education  that  entirely  ignores  them  to  be  well 

child.  So,  by  a  very  simple  calculation,  we  can  get  at  the  maximum 
time  each  child  is  "under  instruction."  If  the  pupil-teacher  has  but 
three-quarters  of  the  pupils  for  whom  the  Department  supposes  him 
"sufficient,"  each  child  cannot  be  under  instruction  more  than  two 
minutes  in  the  hour.  The  rest  of  the  time  the  children  must  sit 
quiet,  or  be  cuffed  if  they  do  not.  What  is  called  "simultaneous" 
teaching  in,  say,  reading,  consists  in  the  pupil-teacher  reading  from  the 
book,  and  as  he  pronounces  each  word,  the  children  shout  it  after  him  ; 
but  no  one  except  the  pupil-teacher  knows  the  place  in  the  book. 

But  perhaps  the  dangers  from  employing  boys  and  girls  to  teach  and 
govern  children  are  greater  morally  than  intellectually.  Whether  he 
report  on  it  or  not,  the  Inspector  has  less  influence  on  the  moral 
training  than  the  youngest  pupil-teacher.  Channing  has  well  said  : 
"A  child  compelled  for  six  hours  each  day  to  see  the  countenance  and 
hear  the  voice  of  an  unfeeling,  petulant,  passionate,  unjust  teacher  is 
placed  in  a  school  of  vice."  Those  who  have  never  taught  day  after 
day,  week  after  week,  month  after  month,  little  know  what  demands 
school-work  makes  on  the  temper  and  the  sense  of  justice.  The 
harshest  tyrants  are  usually  those  who  are  raised  but  a  little  way 
above  those  whom  tliey  have  to  control ;  and  when  I  think  of  the 
pupil-teacher  with  his  forty  pupils  to  keep  in  order,  I  heartily  pity  both 
him  and  them.  Is  there  not  too  much  reason  to  fear  lest  in  many 
cases  the  school  should  prove  for  both  what  Channing  has  well 
described  as  "  a  school  of  vice"?  {R.  H.  Q.  in  Spectator,  ist  March, 
1890.) 


PESTALOZZI.  379 

Lowe  or  Pestalozzi? 

idapted  to  the  needs  of  human  nature.  If  Pestalozzi  was 
fight,  we  must  be  wrong.  We  have  never  supposed  the 
object  of  the  school  to  be  the  development  of  the  faculties 
of  heart,  of  head,  and  of  hand,  but  we  have  thought  of 
nothing  but  learning — learning  first  of  all  to  read,  write, 
and  cipher,  and  then  in  "good"  schools,  one  or  more 
"extra  subjects"  may  be  taken  up,  and  a  grant  obtained 
for  them.  The  sole  object,  both  of  managers  and  teachers, 
is  to  prepare  for  the  Inspector,  who  comes  once  a  year,  and 
from  an  examination  of  five  hours  or  so,  pronounces  on 
what  the  children  have  learnt 

§  114.  The  engineer  most  concerned  in  the  construction 
of  this  machme,  the  Right  Hon.  Robert  Lowe,  announced 
that  there  could  be  "  no  such  thing  as  a  science  of  educa- 
tion ;"  and  as  when  we  have  no  opinion  of  our  own  we  always 
adopt  the  opinion  of  some  positive  person,  we  took  his  word 
for  it.  But  what  if  the  confident  Mr.  Lowe  was  mistaken  ? 
What  if  there  is  such  a  science,  and  the  aim  of  it  is  that 
children  should  grow  up  not  so  much  to  know  something  as 
to  l>e  something  ?  In  this  case  we  shall  be  obliged  sooner 
or  later  to  give  up  Mr.  Lowe  and  to  come  round  to 
Pestalozzi.*  Science  is  correct  inferences  drawn  from  the 
facts  of  the  universe;  and  where  such  science  exists,  confident 
assertions  that  it  does  not  and  cannot  exist  are  dangerous 
for  the  confident  persons  and  for  those  who  follow  them.  Even 

*  Since  the  above  was  written,  another  "  New  Code  "  has  appeared 
(March,  1890),  in  which  the  system  of  measuring  by  "  passes,"  a 
system  maintained  (in  spite  of  the  remonstrances  of  all  interested  in 
education)  for  nearly  30  years,  is  at  length  abandoned.  We  are 
certainly  travelling,  however  slowly,  away  from  Mr.  Lowe.  Far  as  we 
are  still  from  Pestalozzi  there  seems  reason  to  hope  that  the  distance  is 
diminishing. 


380  PESTALOZZI. 


Chief  force,  personality  of  the  teacher. 

if  "  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  science  of  education,"  such 
a  thing  as  education  there  is  ;  and  this  is  just  what  Mr.  Lowe, 
and  we  may  say  the  Enghsh,  practically  deny.  They  make 
arrangements  for  instruction  and  mete  out  "the  grant" 
according  to  the  results  obtained,  but  they  totally  fail  to 
conceive  of  the  existence  of  education^  education  which  has 
instruction  among  its  various  agents. 

§  115.  In  one  respect  the  analogy  between  the  educator 
and  child  and  the  gardener  and  plant,  an  analogy  in  which 
Pestalozzi  no  less  than  Froebel  delighted,  entirely  breaks 
down.  The  gardener  has  to  study  the  conditions  necessary 
for  the  health  and  development  of  the  plant,  but  these 
conditions  lie  outside  his  own  life  and  are  independent  of  it. 
With  the  educator  it  is  different.  Like  the  gardener  he  can 
create  nothing  in  the  child,  but  unlike  the  gardener  he  can 
further  the  development  only  of  that  which  exists  in  himself. 
He  draws  out  in  the  young  the  intelligence  and  the  sense  of 
what  is  just,  theloveof  what  is  beautiful,  the  admiration  of  what 
is  noble,  but  this  he  can  do  only  by  his  own  intelligence  and 
his  own  enthusiasm  for  what  is  just  and  beautiful  and  noble. 
Even  industry  is  in  many  cases  caught  from  the  teacher.  In  a 
volume  of  essays  (originally published  inih^Foruni),  in  which 
some  men,  distinguished  as  scholars  or  in  literature  in  the 
United  States,  have  given  an  account  of  their  early  years,  we 
find  that  almost  in  every  case  they  date  their  intellectual  indus- 
try and  growth  from  the  time  when  they  came  under  the  in- 
fluence of  some  inspiring  teacher.  Thus  even  for  instruction 
and  still  more  for  education,  the  great  force  is  the  teacher. 
This  is  a  truth  which  all  our  "  parties  "  overlook.  They 
wage  their  controversies  and  have  their  triumphs  and  defeats 
about  unessentials,  and  leave  the  essentials  to  "crotchety 
educationists."     In  such  questions  as  whether  the  Church 


PESTALOZZI.  381 


English  care  for  unessentials. 


Catechism  shall  or  shall  not  be  taught,  whether  natural 
science  shall  or  shall  not  figure  in  the  time-table  (without 
scientific  teachers  it  can  figure  nowhere  else),  whether  the 
parents  or  the  Government  shall  pay  for  each  child  twopence 
or  threepence  a  week,  whether  the  ratepayers  shall  or  shall 
not  be  "  represented  "  among  the  Managers  in  "  voluntary  " 
schools,  in  all  questions  of  this  kind  education  is  not  con- 
cerned ;  and  yet  these  are  the  only  questions  that  we  think 
about  In  the  end  it  will  perhaps  dawn  upon  us  that  in 
every  school  what  is  important  for  education  is  not  the  time- 
table but  the  teacher,  and  that  so  far  as  pupil-teachers  are 
employed  education  is  impossible.  Elsewhere  (infra  p.  476) 
I  have  told  of  a  man  in  the  prime  of  life  (he  seemed  between 
40  and  50  years  old)  whose  time  was  entirely  taken  up  in 
teaching  a  large  class  of  children,  boys  and  girls,  of  six  or 
seven  years.  He  most  certainly  could  and  did  educate  them 
both  in  heart  and  mind.  He  made  their  lessons  a  delightful 
occupation  to  them,  and  he  exercised  over  them  the  influence 
of  a  good  and  wise  father.  Here  was  the  right  system  seen 
at  its  best.  I  do  not  say  that  all  or  even  most  adult  teachers 
would  have  exercised  so  good  an  influence  as  this  gentleman ; 
but  so  far  as  they  come  up  to  what  they  ought  to  be  and 
might  be  they  do  exercise  such  an  influence.  And  this  of 
course  can  be  said  of  no  j>«///-teacher. 

§  116.  As  regards  schools  then,  schools  for  the  rich  and 
schools  for  the  poor,  the  great  educating  force  is  the  per- 
sonality of  the  teacher.  Before  we  can  have  Pestalozzian 
schools  we  must  have  Pestalozzian  teachers.  Teachers 
must  catch  something  of  Pestalozzi's  spirit  and  enter  into 
his  conception  of  their  task.  Perhaps  some  of  them  will 
feel  inclined  to  say  :  "Fine  words,  no  doubt,  and  in  a  sense 
very  true,  that  education  should  be  the  unfolding  of  tile 
27 


382  PESTALOZZI. 


Aim  at  the  ideal. 


faculties  according  to  the  Divine  idea ;  but  between  this 
liigh  poetical  theory  and  the  dull  prose  of  actual  school- 
teaching,  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed,  and  we  cannot  attend 
to  both  at  the  same  time."  I  know  full  well  the  difference 
there  is  between  theories  and  plans  of  education  as  they 
seem  to  us  when  we  are  at  leisure  and  can  think  of  them 
without  reference  to  particular  pupils,  and  when  all  our 
energy  is  taxed  to  get  through  our  day's  teaching,  and  our 
animal  spirits  jaded  by  having  to  keep  order  and  exact 
attention  among  veritable  schoolboys  who  do  not  answer 
in  all  respects  to  *'  the  young  "  of  the  theorists.  But  whilst 
admitting  most  heartily  the  difference  here,  as  elsewhere, 
between  the  actual  and  the  ideal,  I  think  that  the  dull 
prose  of  school-teaching  would  be  less  dull  and  less  prosaic 
if  our  aim  was  higher,  and  if  we  did  not  contentedly  assume 
that  our  present  performances  are  as  good  as  the  nature  of 
the  case  will  admit  of.  Many  teachers  (perhaps  I  may  say 
most)  are  discontented  with  the  greater  number  of  their  pupils, 
but  it  is  not  so  usual  for  teachers  to  be  discontented  with 
themselves.  And  yet  even  those  who  are  most  averse  from 
theoretical  views,  which  they  call  unpractical,  would  admit, 
as  practical  men,  that  their  methods  are  probably  suscep- 
tible of  improvement,  and  that  even  if  their  methods  are 
right,  they  themselves  are  by  no  means  perfect  teachers. 
Only  let  the  desire  of  improvement  once  exist,  and  the 
teacher  will  find  a  new  interest  in  his  work.  In  part,  the 
treadmill-like  monotony  so  wearing  to  the  spirits  will  be 
done  away,  and  he  will  at  times  have  the  encouragement  of 
conscious  progress.  To  a  man  thus  minded,  theorists  may 
be  of  great  assistance.  His  practical  knowledge  may,  in- 
deed, often  show  him  the  absurdity  of  some  pompously 
enunciated  principle,  and  even  where  the  principles  seem 


PESTALOZZI.  383 

Use  of  theorists.    Books. 

— — ^— .  ^  "  ■"" 

sound,  he  may  smile  at  the  applications.  But  the  theorists 
will  show  him  many  aspects  of  his  profession,  and  will  lead 
him  to  make  many  observations  in  it,  which  would  other- 
wise have  escaped  him.  They  will  save  him  from  a  danger 
caused  by  the  difficulty  of  getting  anything  done  in  the 
school-room,  the  danger  of  thinking  more  of  means  than 
ends.  They  will  teach  him  to  examine  what  his  aim  really 
is,  and  then  whether  he  is  using  the  most  suitable  methods 
to  accomplish  it. 

Such  a  theorist  is  Pestalozzi.  He  points  to  a  high  ideal, 
and  bids  us  m.easure  our  modes  of  education  by  it.  Let  us 
not  forget  that  if  we  are  practical  men  we  are  Christians, 
and  as  such  the  ideal  set  before  us  is  the  highest  of  all. 
"  Be  ye  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect." 


The  Pestalozzian  literature  in  German  and  even  in  French  is  now 
considerable,  but  it  is  still  small  in  English.  The  book  I  have  made 
most  use  of  is  Histoire  de  Pestalozzi  par  R.  de  Guiinps  (Lausanne, 
Bridel),  with  its  translation  by  John  Russell  (London  :  Sonnen- 
schein.  Appleton's  :  N.  Yk.).  In  Henry  Barnard's  Pestalozzi  and 
Pestalozzianism  are  collected  some  good  papers,  among  them  Tilleard's 
trans,  from  Raumer.  We  also  have  H,  Kruesi's  Pestalozzi  (Cinci- 
natti :  Wilson,  Hinkle,  &  Co.).  I  Tiave  already  mentioned  Miss 
Channing's  Leonard  and  Gertrude.  The  Letters  to  Greaves  are  now 
out  of  print.  A  complete  account  of  Pestalozzi  and  everything 
connected  with  him,  bibliography  included,  is  given  in  M.  J, 
Guillaume's  article  Pestalozzi,  in  Buisson's  Dictionnaire  de  Pedagogi-t. 
(See  also  Pestalozzi  par  J.  Guillaume  (Hachette)  just  published.) 


XVII. 

FRIEDRICH   FROEBEL 


(1783-1852.) 


g  1.  I  NOW  approach  the  most  difficult  part  of  my  subject. 
I  have  endeavoured  to  give  some  account  of  the  lessons 
taught  us  by  the  chief  Educational  Reformers.  No  doubt 
my  selection  of  these  has  been  made  in  a  fashion  somewhat 
arbitrary,  and  there  are  names  wliich  do  not  appear  and 
yet  might  reasonably  be  looked  for  if  all  the  chief  Educa- 
tional Reformers  were  supposed  to  be  included.  But  the 
plan  of  my  book  has  restricted  me  to  a  few,  and  I  am  by 
no  means  sure  that  some  to  whom  I  have  given  a  chapter  are 
as  worthy  of  it  as  some  to  whom  I  have  not.  I  have 
in  a  measure  been  guided  by  fancy  and  even  by  chance. 
One  man,  however,  I  dare  not  leave  out.  All  the  best 
tendencies  of  modern  thought  on  education  seem  to  me  to 
culminate  in  what  was  said  and  done  by  Friedrich  Froebel, 
and  I  have  little  doubt  that  he  has  shown  the  right  road 
foi  further  advance.  Of  what  he  said  and  did  I  therefore 
feel  bound  to  give  the  best  account  I  can,  but  I  am  well 
aware  that  I  shall  fail,  even  more  conspicuously  than  in 
other  cases,  to  do  him  justice.  There  are  some  great  men 
who  seem  to  have  access  to  a  world  from  which  we  ordinary 
mortals  are  shut  out.     Like  Moses  "  they  go  up  into  the 


FROEBEL.  385 

Difficulty  in  understanding  F. 

Mount,"  and  the  directions  they  give  us  are  based  upon 
what  they  have  seen  in  it.  But  we  cannot  go  up  with 
them ;  so  we  feel  that  we  very  imperfectly  understand  them ; 
and  when  there  can  be  not  the  smallest  doubt  of  their 
sincerity  we  at  times  hesitate  about  the  nature  of  their 
visions.  For  myself  I  must  admit  that  I  very  imperfectly 
understand  Froebel.  I  am  convinced,  as  I  said,  that  he  has 
pointed  out  the  right  road  for  our  advance  in  education ; 
but  he  was  perhaps  right  in  saying :  "  Centuries  may  yet 
pass  before  my  view  of  the  human  creature  as  manifested  in 
the  child,  and  of  the  educational  treatment  it  requires,  are 
universally  received."  It  has  already  taken  centuries  to 
recover  from  the  mistakes  made  at  the  Renascence.  For 
the  full  attainment  of  Froebel's  standpoint  perhaps  a  few 
additional  centuries  may  be  necessary. 

§  2.  Friedrich  Wilhelm  August  Froebel*  was  born  at 
Oberweissbach,  a  village  of  the  Thuringian  Forest,  on  the 
2ist  April,  1783.  He  completed  his  seventieth  year,  aad 
died  at  Marienthal,  near  Bad-Liebenstein,  on  the  21st  June, 
1852.  Like  Comenius,  with  whom  he  had  much  in 
common,  he  was  neglected  in  his  youth ;  and  the  remem- 
brance of  his  own  early  sufferings  made  him  in  after  life 
the  more  eager  in  promoting  the  happiness  of  children. 
His  mother  he  lost  in  his  infancy,  and  his  father,  the  pastor 
of  Oberweissbach  and  the  surrounding  district,  attended  to 
his  parish  but  not  to  his  family.  Friedrich  soon  had  a 
stepmother,  and  neglect  was  succeeded  by  stepmotherly 
attention ;  but  a  maternal  uncle  took  pity  on  him,  and  for 

*  This  short  sketch  of  Froebel's  life  is  mainly  taken,  with  Messrs. 
Black's  permission,  from  the  Encydopcsdia  Britannica,  for  which  ] 
wrote  it. 


386  FROEBEL. 

A  lad's  quest  of  unity. 

some  years  gave  him  a  home  a  few  miles  off  at  Stadt-Ilm. 
Here  he  went  to  the  village  school,  but  like  many  thoughtful 
boys  he  passed  for  a  dunce.  Throughout  life  he  wag 
always  seeking  for  hidden  connexions  and  an  underlying 
unity  in  all  things.  In  his  own  words  :  "  Man,  particularly 
in  boyhood,  should  become  intimate  with  nature — not  so 
much  with  reference  to  the  details  and  the  outer  forms  of 
her  phenomena  as  with  reference  to  the  Spirit  of  God  that 
lives  in  her  and  rules  over  her.  Indeed,  the  boy  feels  this 
deeply  and  demands  it "  {Ed.  of  M.^  Hailmann's  trans.,  p. 
162).  But  nothing  of  this  unity  was  to  be  perceived  in  the 
piecemeal  studies  of  the  school ;  so  Froebel's  mind,  busy  as 
it  was  for  itself,  would  not  work  for  the  masters.  His  half- 
brother  was  therefore  thought  more  worthy  of  a  university 
education,  and  Friedrich  was  apprenticed  for  two  years  to  a 
forester  (i 797-1 799).  Left  to  himself  in  the  Thuringian 
Forest,  Froebel  now  began  to  "become  intimate  with 
nature ;"  and  without  scientific  instruction  he  obtained  a 
profound  insight  into  the  uniformity  and  essential  unity  of 
nature's  laws.  Years  afterwards  the  celebrated  Jahn  (the 
"Father  Jahn"  of  the  German  gymnasts)  told  a  Berlin 
student  of  a  queer  fellow  he  had  met,  who  made  out  all 
sorts  of  wonderful  things  from  stones  and  cobwebs.  This 
"  queer  fellow  "  was  Froebel ;  and  the  habit  of  making  out 
general  truths  from  the  observation  of  nature,  especially  of 
plants  and  trees,  dated  from  his  solitary  rambles  in  the 
Forest.  No  training  could  have  been  better  suited  to 
strengthen  his  inborn  tendency  to  mysticism ;  and  when  he 
left  the  Forest  at  the  early  age  of  seventeen,  he  seems  to 
have  been  possessed  by  the  main  ideas  which  influenced 
him  all  his  life.  The  conception  which  in  him  dominated 
all  others  was  the  unity  of  nature ;  and  he  longed  to  study 


FROEBEL.  387 

F.  wandering  without  rest. 

natural  sciences  that  he  might  find  in  them  various  applica- 
tions of  nature's  universal  laws.  With  great  difficulty  he 
got  leave  to  join  his  elder  brother  at  the  university  of  Jena ; 
and  there  for  a  year  he  went  from  lecture-room  to  lecture- 
room  hoping  to  grasp  that  connexion  of  the  sciences  which 
had  for  him  far  more  attraction  than  any  particular  science 
in  itself.  But  Froebel's  allowance  of  money  was  very  small, 
and  his  skill  in  the  managemect  of  money  was  never  great ; 
so  his  university  career  ended  in  an  imprisonment  of  nine 
weeks  for  a  debt  of  thirty  shillings.  He  then  returned 
home  with  very  poor  prospects,  but  much  more  intent  on 
what  he  calls  the  course  of  "self-completion"  i^Vervoll- 
kommnung  meines  selbst)  than  on  "  getting  on  "  in  a  worldly 
point  of  view.  He  was  soon  sent  to  learn  farming,  but  was 
recalled  in  consequence  of  the  failing  health  of  his  father. 
In  i»02  the  father  died,  and  Froebel,  now  twenty  years  old, 
had  to  shift  for  himself.  It  was  some  time  before  he  found 
his  true  vocation,  and  for  the  next  three-and-a  half  years  we 
find  him  at  work  now  in  one  part  of  Germany  now  in 
another, — sometimes  land-surveying,  sometimes  acting  as 
accountant,  sometimes  as  private  secretary. 

§  3.  But  in  all  this  his  "  outer  life  was  far  removed  from 
bis  inner  life."  "I  carried  my  own  world  within  me,"  he 
tells  us,  "  and  this  it  was  for  which  I  cared  and  which  I 
cherished."  In  spite  of  his  outward  circumstances  he 
became  more  and  more  conscious  that  a  great  task  lay 
before  him  for  the  good  of  humanity ;  and  this  conscious- 
ness proved  fatal  to  his  "  settling  down."  "  To  thee  may 
Fate  soon  give  a  settled  hearth  and  a  loving  wife  "  (thus  he 
wrote  in  a  friend's  album  in  1805);  "me  let  it  keep 
wandering  without  rest,  and  allow  only  time  to  learn  aright 
my  true  relation  to  the  world  and  to  my  own  inner  being. 


388  FROEBEL. 


Finds  his  vocation.     With  Pestalozzi. 

Do  thou  give  bread  to  men ;  be  it  my  effort  to  give  men  to 
themselves "  (K.  Schmidt's  Gesch.  d.  Fad.,  3rd  ed.  by 
Lange,  vol.  iv,  p.  277). 

§  4.  As  yet  the  nature  of  the  task  was  not  clear  to  him, 
and  it  seemed  determined  by  accident.  While  studying 
architecture  in  Frankfort-on-the-Main,  he  became  acquainted 
with  the  director  of  a  model  school  who  had  caught  some 
of  the  enthusiasm  of  Pestalozzi.  This  friend  saw  that 
Froebel's  true  field  was  education,  and  he  persuaded  him  to 
give  up  architecture  and  take  a  post  in  the  model  school. 
"  The  very  first  time,"  he  says,  "  that  I  found  myself  before 
thirty  or  forty  boys,  I  felt  thoroughly  at  home.  In  fact,  I 
perceived  that  I  had  at  last  found  my  long-missed  life- 
element;  and  I  wrote  to  my  brother  that  I  was  as  well 
pleased  as  the  fish  in  the  water :  I  was  inexpressibly 
happy." 

§  5.  In  this  school  Froebel  worked  for  two  years  with 
remarkable  success  3  but  he  felt  more  and  more  his  need  of 
preparation,  so  he  then  retired  and  undertook  the  education 
of  three  lads  of  one  family.  Even  in  this  he  could  not 
satisfy  himself,  and  he  obtained  the  parents'  consent  to  his 
taking  the  boys  to  Yverdun,  and  there  forming  with  them  a 
part  of  the  celebrated  institution  of  Pestalozzi.  Thus  from 
1807  till  1809  Froebel  was  drinking  in  Pestalozzianism  at 
the  fountain  head,  and  qualifying  himself  to  carry  on  the 
work  which  Pestalozzi  had  begun.  For  the  science  of 
education  had  to  deduce  from  Pestalozzi's  experience 
principles  which  Pestalozzi  himself  could  not  deduce; 
and  "Froebel,  the  pupil  of  Pestalozzi,  and  a  genius  lik*; 
his  master,  completed  the  reformer's  system;  taking  the 
results  at  which  Pestalozzi  had  arrived  through  the  neces- 
sities of  his  position,  Froebel  developed  the  ideas  involved 


FROEBEL.  389 

Froebel  at  the  Universities. 

in  them,  not  by  further  experience  but  by  deduction  from 
the  nature  of  man,  and  thus  he  attained  to  the  conception 
of  true  human  development  and  to  the  requirements  of  true 
education"  (Schmidt's  Gesch.  d.  Pad). 

%  6.  Holding  that  man  and  nature,  inasmuch  as  they 
proceed  from  the  same  Source,  must  be  governed  by  the 
same  laws,  Froebel  longed  for  more  knowledge  of  natural 
science.  Even  Pestalozzi  seemed  to  him  not  to  "  honour 
science  in  her  divinity."  He  therefore  determined  to 
continue  the  university  course  which  had  been  so  rudely 
interrupted  eleven  years  before,  and  in  181 1  he  began 
studying  at  Gottingen,  whence  he  proceeded  to  Berlin.  In 
his  Autobiography  he  tells  us  :  "  The  lectures  for  which  I 
had  so  longed  really  came  up  to  the  needs  of  my  mind  and 
soul,  and  made  me  feel  more  fervently  than  ever  the 
certainty  of  the  demonstrable  inner  connexion  of  the  whole 
cosmical  development  of  the  universe.  I  saw  also  the 
possibility  of  man's  becoming  conscious  of  this  absolute 
unity  of  the  universe,  as  well  as  of  the  diversity  of  things 
and  appearances  which  is  perpetually  unfolding  itself  within 
that  unity ;  and  then  when  I  had  made  clear  to  myself,  and 
brought  fully  home  to  my  consciousness  the  view  that  the 
infinitely  varied  phenomena  in  man's  life,  work,  thought, 
feeling,  and  position  were  all  summed  up  in  the  unity  of 
his  personal  existence  I  felt  myself  able  to  turn  my  thoughts 
once  more  to  educational  problems "  {Autob,  trans,  by 
Michaelis  and  Moore,  p.  89). 

But  again  his  studies  were  interrupted,  this  time  by  the 
king  of  Prussia's  celebrated  call  "  To  my  people."  Though 
not  a  Prussian,  Froebel  was  heart  and  soul  a  German.  He 
therefore  responded  to  the  call,  enlisted  in  Liitzow's  corps, 
and   went   through  the  campaign  of  1813.      His  militarj' 


390  FROEBEL. 

Thro'  the  Freiheits-krieg.    Mineralogy. 

ardour,  however,  did  not  take  his  mind  off  education. 
"  Everywhere,"  he  writes,  "  as  far  as  the  fatigues  I  under- 
went allowed,  I  carried  in  my  thoughts  my  future  calling  as 
educator ;  yes,  even  in  the  few  engagements  in  which  1  had 
to  take  part.  Even  in  these  I  could  gather  experience  for 
the  task  I  proposed  to  myself."  Froebel's  soldiering  showed 
him  the  value  of  discipline  and  united  action,  how  the 
individual  belongs  not  to  himself  but  to  the  whole  body, 
and  how  the  whole  body  supports  the  individual. 

Froebel  was  rewarded  for  his  patriotism  by  the  friendship 
of  two  men  whose  names  will  always  be  associated  with  his, 
Langethal  and  Middendorff.  These  young  men,  ten  years 
younger  than  Froebel,  became  attached  to  him  in  the  field, 
and  were  ever  afterwards  his  devoted  followers,  sacrificing 
all  their  prospects  in  life  for  the  sake  of  carrying  out  his 
ideas. 

§  7.  At  the  peace  of  Fontainebleau  (signed  in  May, 
1 8 14)  Froebel  returned  to  Berlin,  and  became  curator  of 
the  Museum  of  Mineralogy  under  Professor  Weiss.  In 
accepting  this  appointment  from  the  Government  he  seemed 
to  turn  aside  from  his  work  as  educator ;  but  if  not  teaching 
he  was  learning.  The  unity  of  nature  and  human  nature 
seemed  more  and  more  to  reveal  itself  to  him.  Of  the 
days  past  in  the  museum  he  afterwards  wrote  :  "  Here  was 
I  at  the  central  point  of  my  life  and  strife,  where  inner 
working  and  law,  where  life,  nature,  and  mathematics  were 
united  in  the  fixed  crystaline  form,  where  a  world  of 
symbols  lay  open  to  the  inner  eye."  Again  he  says  :  "The 
stones  in  my  hand  and  under  my  eye  became  speaking 
forms.  The  world  of  crystals  declared  to  me  the  life  and 
laws  of  life  of  man,  and  in  still  but  real  and  sensible  speech 
taught  the  true  Ufe  of  humanity."     "  Geology  and  crystal* 


FROEBEL.  391 

The  "  New  Education  "  started. 

lography  not  only  opened  for  me  a  higher  circle  of  knowledge 
and  insight,  but  also  showed  me  a  higher  goal  for  my 
inquiry,  my  speculation,  and  my  endeavour.  Nature  and 
man  now  seemed  to  me  mutually  to  explain  each  other 
through  all  their  numberless  various  stages  of  development. 
Man,  as  I  saw,  receives  from  a  knowledge  of  natural 
objects,  even  because  of  their  immense  deep-seated 
diversity,  a  foundation  for  and  a  guidance  towards  a  know- 
ledge of  himself  and  life,  and  a  preparation  for  the 
manifestation  of  that  knowledge  "  {Autob.  ut  supra^  p.  97). 
More  and  more  the  thought  possessed  him  that  the  one 
thing  needful  for  man  was  unity  of  development,  perfect 
evolution  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  his  being,  such 
evolution  as  science  discovers  in  the  other  organisms  of 
nature. 

§  8.  He  at  first  intended  to  become  a  teacher  of  natural 
science,  but  before  long  wider  views  dawned  upon  him. 
Langethal  and  Middendorfif  were  in  Berlin,  engaged  in 
tuition.  Froebel  gave  them  regular  instruction  in  his 
theory,  and  at  length,  counting  on  their  support,  he 
resolved  to  set  about  realising  his  own  idea  of  "  the  new 
education."  This  was  in  1816.  Three  years  before  one 
of  his  brothers,  a  clergyman,  had  died  of  fever  caught  from 
the  French  prisoners.  His  widow  was  still  living  in  the 
parsonage  at  Griesheim,  a  village  on  the  Ilm.  Froebel 
gave  up  his  post  in  Berlin,  and  set  out  for  Griesheim  on 
foot,  spending  his  very  last  groschen  on  the  way  for  bread. 
Here  he  undertook  the  education  of  his  orphan  niece  and 
nephews,  and  also  of  two  more  nephews  sent  him  by 
another  brother.  With  these  he  opened  a  school,  and 
wrote  to  Middendorff  and  Langethal  to  come  and  help  in 
the  experiment.     Middendorff  came  at  once,  Langethal  a 


392  FROEBEL. 

At  Keilhau.    "  Education  of  Man  "  published. 

year  or  two  later,  when  the  school  had  been  moved  tu 
Keilhau,  another  of  the  Thuringian  villages,  which  became 
the  Mecca  of  the  new  faith.  In  Keilhau,  Froebel, 
Langethal,  Middendorff,  and  Barop,  a  relation  of  Midden^ 
dorffs,  all  married  and  formed  an  educationa,!  community. 
Such  zeal  could  not  be  fruitless,  and  the  school  gradually 
increased,  though  for  many  years  its  teachers,  with  Froebel 
at  their  head,  were  in  the  greatest  straits  for  money,  and  at 
times  even  for  food,  Karl  Froebel,  who  was  brought  up  in 
the  school,  tells  how,  on  one  occasion,  he  and  the  other 
children  were  sent  to  ramble  in  the  woods  till  some  of  the 
seed-corn  provided  for  the  coming  year  had  been  turned 
into  bread  for  them.  Besides  these  difficulties  the  com- 
munity suffered  from  the  panic  and  reaction  after  the 
murder  of  Kotzebue  (1819),  and  were  persecuted  as  a  nest 
of  demagogues.  But  "  the  New  Education  "  was  sufficiently 
successful  to  attract  notice  from  all  quarters ;  and  when  he 
had  been  ten  years  at  Keilhau  (1826)  Froebel  pubhshed  his 
great  work,  The  Education  of  Man. 

§  9.  Four  years  later  he  determined  to  start  other  institu- 
tions in  connexion  with  the  parent  institution  at  Keilhau ; 
and  being  offered  by  a  private  friend  the  use  of  a  castle  on 
the  Wartensee,  in  the  canton  of  Lucerne,  he  left  Keilhau 
under  the  direction  of  Barop,  and  with  Langethal  made  a 
settlement  in  Switzerland.  The  ground,  however,  was  very 
ill  chosen.  The  Catholic  clergy  resisted  what  they  con- 
sidered as  a  Protestant  invasion,  and  the  experiment  on  the 
Wartensee  and  at  Willisau  in  the  same  canton,  to  which  the 
institution  was  moved  in  1833,  never  had  a  fair  chance.  It 
was  in  vain  that  Middendorff  at  Froebel's  call  left  liis  wife 
and  family  at  Keilhau,  and  laboured  for  four  years  in 
Switzerland  without  once  seeing  them.    The  Swiss  institution 


FROEBEL.  393 

Froebel  fails  in  Switzerland. 

never  flourished.  But  the  Swiss  Government  wished  to 
turn  to  account  the  presence  of  the  great  educator ;  so 
young  teachers  were  sent  to  Froebel  for  instruction,  and 
finally  he  removed  to  Burgdorf  (a  town  already  famous  from 
Pestalozzi's  labours  there  thirty  years  earlier)  to  undertake 
the  establishment  of  a  public  orphanage,  and  also  to 
superintend  a  course  of  teaching  for  schoolmasters.  The 
elementary  teachers  of  the  canton  were  to  spend  three 
months  every  alternate  year  at  Burgdorf,  and  there  compare 
experiences,  and  learn  of  distinguished  men  such  as  Froebel 
and  Bitzius. 

§  lo.  In  his  conferences  with  these  teachers  Froebel 
found  that  the  schools  suffered  from  the  state  of  the  raw 
material  brought  into  them.  Till  the  school  age  was 
reached  the  children  were  entirely  neglected.  Froebel's 
conception  of  harmonious  development  naturally  led  him 
to  attach  much  importance  to  the  earliest  years,  and  his 
great  work  on  The  Education  of  Man,  published  as  early  as 
1826,  deals  chiefly  with  the  education  of  children.  At 
Burgdorf  his  thoughts  were  much  occupied  with  the  proper 
treatment  of  young  children,  and  in  scheming  for  them  a 
graduated  course  of  exercises  modelled  on  the  games  in 
which  he  observed  them  to  be  most  interested.  In  his 
eagerness  to  carry  out  bis  new  plans  he  grew  impatient  of 
ofiicial  restraints ;  and  partly  from  this  reason,  partly  on 
account  of  his  wife's  ill  health,  he  left  Burgdorf  without 
even  actually  becoming  "  VVaisenvater "  (father  of  the 
orphans).*  After  a  sojourn  of  some  months  in  Berlin, 
where  he  was  detained  through  family  affairs,  but  used  the 

*  This  office  was  first  filled  by  Langethal  and  afterwards  by  Ferdi- 
nand Froebel.  I  learned  this  at  Burgdorf  from  Herr  Pfarrer  Heuer, 
whose  father  had  himself  been  Waisenvater. 


394  FROEBEL. 

The  first  Kindergarten. 

opportunities  thus  afforded  of  examining  the  recently 
founded  infant  schools,  Froebel  returned  to  Keilhau,  and 
soon  afterwards  opened  the  first  Kindergarten^  or  "  Garden 
of  Children,"  in  the  neighbouring  village  of  Blankenburg 
(a.d.  1837).  Not  only  the  thing  but  the  name  seemed  to 
Froebel  a  happy  inspiration,  and  it  has  now  become 
inseparably  connected  with  his  own.  Perhaps  we  can 
hardly  understand  the  pleasure  he  took  in  it  unless  we 
know  its  predecessor,  Kleinkinderiesch'dftigungsanstalt. 

§  1 1.  Firmly  convinced  of  the  importance  of  the  Kinder- 
garten for  the  whole  human  race,  Froebel  described  his 
system  in  a  weekly  paper  (his  Sonntagsblatt)  which  appeared 
from  the  middle  of  1837  till  1840.  He  also  lectured  in 
great  towns ;  and  he  gave  a  regular  course  of  instruction  to 
young  teachers  at  Blankenburg. 

^12.  But  although  the  principles  of  the  Kindergarten 
Kere  gradually  making  their  way,  the  first  Kindergarten  was 
failing  for  want  of  funds.  It  had  to  be  given  up;  and 
Froebel,  now  a  widower  (he  had  lost  his  wife  in  1839), 
carried  on  his  course  for  teachers  first  at  Keilhau,  and  from 
1848,  for  the  last  four  years  of  his  hfe,  at  or  near  Liebenstein, 
in  the  Thuringian  Forest,  and  in  the  duchy  of  Meiningen. 
It  is  in  these  last  years  that  the  man  Froebel  will  be  best 
known  to  posterity;  for  in  1849  ^^  attracted  within  the 
circle  of  his  influence  a  woman  of  great  intellectual  power, 
the  Baroness  von  Marenholtz-Biilow,  who  has  given  us  in 
hei  Recollections  of  Fried  rich  Froebel  the.  only  life-like  portrait 
we  possess.  In  these  records  of  personal  intercourse  we 
see  the  truth  of  Deinhardt's  words  :  "  The  living  perception 
of  universal  and  ideal  truth  which  his  talk  revealed  to  us, 
his  unbounded  enthusiasm  for  the  education  and  happiness 
of  the  human  race,  his  willingness  to  offer  up  everything  he 


FROEBEL.  395 


F.'s  last  years.    Prussian  edict  against  him. 

possessed  for  the  sake  of  his  idea,  the  stream  of  thoughts 
which  flowed  from  his  enthusiasm  for  the  ideal  as  from  an 
inexhaustible  fountain,  all  these  made  Froebel  a  wonderful 
appearance  in  the  world,  by  whom  no  unprejudiced  spectator 
could  fail  to  be  attracted  and  elevated." 

§  13.  These  seemed  likely  to  be  Froebel's  most  peaceful 
days.  He  married  again  ;  and  having  now  devoted  himself 
to  the  training  of  women  as  educators,  he  spent  his  time  in 
instructing  his  class  of  young  female  teachers.  But  trouble 
came  upon  him  from  a  quarter  whence  he  least  expected  it. 
In  the  great  year  of  revolutions,  1848,  Froebel  had  hoped  to 
turn  to  account  the  general  eagerness  for  improvement,  and 
Middendorff  had  presented  an  address  on  Kindergartens  to 
the  German  Parliament.  Besides  this  a  nephew  of  Froebel's 
published  books  which  were  supposed  to  teach  socialism. 
True  the  uncle  and  nephew  differed  so  widely  that  "  the 
New  Froebelians"  were  the  enemies  of  the  "Old."  But 
the  distinction  was  overlooked,  and  Friedrich  and  Karl 
Froebel  were  regarded  as  the  united  advocates  of  "  some 
new  thing."  In  the  reaction  which  soon  set  in,  Froebel 
found  himself  suspected  of  socialism  and  irreligion  ;  and  in 
1 85 1  the  Cultus-minister 'R.a.ViVCiQX  issued  an  edict  forbidding 
the  establishment  of  schools  "after  Friedrich  and  Karl 
Froebel's  principles "  in  Prussia.  It  was  in  vain  that 
Froebel  proved  that  his  principles  differed  fundamentally 
from  his  nephew's.  It  was  in  vain  that  a  congress  of 
schoolmasters,  presided  over  by  the  celebrated  Diesterweg, 
protested  against  the  calumnious  decree.  The  Minister 
turned  a  deaf  ear,  and  the  decree  remained  in  force  ten 
years  after  the  death  of  Froebel  {i.e.,  till  1862).  But  the 
edict  was  a  heavy  blow  to  the  old  man,  who  looked  to  the 
Government  of  the  "  Cultus-staat "  Prussia  for  support,  and 


390  FROEBEL. 

His  end.    Attitude  towards  Reformers. 

was  met  with  denunciation.  Of  the  justice  of  the  charge 
brought  by  the  Minister  against  Froebel  the  reader  may 
judge  from  the  account  of  his  principles  given  below. 

Whether  from  the  worry  of  this  new  controversy,  or  from 
whatever  cause,  Froebel  did  not  long  survive  the  decree. 
His  seventieth  birthday  was  celebrated  with  great  rejoicings 
in  May,  1852,  but  he  died  in  the  following  month,  and 
lies  burled  at  Schweina,  a  village  near  his  last  abode, 
Marienthal. 

§  14.  Throughout  these  essays  my  object  has  been  to 
collect  what  seemed  to  me  the  most  valuable  lessons  of 
various  Reformers.  In  doing  this  I  have  had  to  judge  and 
decide  what  was  most  valuable,  and  at  times  to  criticise  and 
differ  from  my  authorities.  This  may  perhaps  give  rise  to 
the  question,  Do  you  then  think  yourself  the  superior  or 
at  least  the  equal  of  the  great  men  you  criticise  ?  and  I 
could  only  reply  in  all  sincerity,  I  most  certainly  do  not. 
If  I  am  asked  further,  what  then  is  my  attitude  towards 
them  ?  I  reply,  it  differs  very  much  with  different  indi- 
viduals. I  cannot  say  I  am  prepared  to  sit  at  the  feet  of 
Mulcaster,  or  Dury,  or  Petty.  In  writing  of  these  men  I 
simply  point  out  very  early  expression  of  ideas  that  following 
generations  have  developed  partially  and  we  are  developing 
still.  When  we  come  to  the  great  leaders  we  see  among 
them  men  like  Comenius  who  unite  a  thorough  study  of 
what  has  already  been  thought  and  done  with  a  genius  for 
original  thinking,  men  like  Locke  with  splendid  intellectual 
gifts  and  a  power  of  happy  and  clear  expression,  men  like 
Rousseau  with  a  talent  for  shaking  themselves  free  from 
"custom" — custom  which  "lies  upon  us  with  a  weight, 
1  [eavy  as  frost  and  deep  almost  as  life,"  and  besides  this 
(in  his  case  at  least)  endowed  with  a  voice  to  be  heard 


FROEBEL.  397 


Difficulties  with  Froebel. 


throughout  the  world.  Then  again  we  have  men  like 
Pestalozzi  who  with  a  genius  for  investigating,  devote  theii 
lives  to  the  investigation,  and  men  like  Froebel  who  seem 
to  penetrate  to  a  region  above  us  or  at  least  beyond  us,  and 
to  talk  about  it  in  language  which  at  times  only  partially 
conveys  a  meaning.  From  all  these  men  we  have  much  to 
learn  ;  and  that  we  may  do  this  we  must  come  as  learners 
to  them.  When  we  thus  come  we  find  that  the  great  lessons 
they  teach  become  clearer  and  clearer  as  each  takes  up 
wholly  or  in  part  what  has  been  taught  by  his  predecessors 
and  adds  to  it.  Some  of  these  lessons  we  may  now  receive 
as  established  truths  and  seek  to  conform  our  practice  to 
them.  But  in  following  our  leaders  we  dare  not  close  our 
eyes.  Before  we  can  know  anything  we  must  see  it,  as 
Locke  says,  with  our  mind's  eye.  The  great  thing  is  to 
keep  the  eye  of  the  mind  wide  open  and  always  on  the  look- 
out for  truth.  Acting  on  this  conviction  I  have  not  blindly 
accepted  the  dicta  even  of  the  greatest  men  but  have  selected 
those  of  their  lessons  which  are  taught  if  not  by  all  at  least 
by  most  of  them,  and  which  also  seem  to  evoke  "  the  spon- 
taneous spring  of  the  intelligence  towards  truth  "  (see  p.  362, 
supra). 

§  15,  In  reading  Froebel  however  I  am  conscious  that 
this  "  spring  "  is  wanting.  Before  one  can  accept  teaching 
one  must  at  least  understand  it,  and  this  preliminary  is  not 
always  possible  when  we  would  learn  from  Froebel.  At 
times  he  goes  entirely  out  of  sight,  and  whether  the  words 
we  hear  are  the  expression  of  deep  truth  or  have  absolutely 
no  meaning  at  all,  I  for  my  part  am  at  times  totally  unable 
to  determine.  But  where  I  can  understand  him  he  seems 
to  me  singularly  wise ;  and  working  in  the  same  lines  as 
Pestalozzi  he  in  some  respects  advances  far  beyond  his  great 
predecessor. 

98 


398  FROEBEL. 


"  Cui  omnia  unum  sunt." 


§  1 6.  Both  these  men  were  devotees  of  science ;  but 
instead  of  finding  in  science  anything  antagonistic  to 
religion  they  looked  upon  science  as  the  expression  of  the 
mind  of  God,  Their  belief  was  just  that  which  Sir  Thomas 
Browne  had  uttered  more  than  200  years  before  in  the  Religh 
Medici:  "Though  we  christen  effects  by  their  most  sensible 
and  nearest  causes  yet  is  God  the  true  and  infallible  cause 
of  all,  whose  concourse  [i.e.,  concurrence,  co-operation] 
though  it  be  general,  yet  doth  it  subdivide  itself  into  the 
particular  actions  of  everything,  and  is  that  spirit  by  which 
each  singular  essence  not  only  subsists  but  performs  its 
operation."*  With  this  belief  Froebel  sought  to  trace 
everything  back  to  the  central  Unity,  to  God.  The  author 
of  the  De  Imitatione  Christi  has  said  :  "  The  man  to  whom 
all  things  are  one,  who  refers  all  things  to  one  and  sees  all 
things  in  one,  he  can  stand  firm  and  be  at  peace  in  God. 
Cui  omnia  unum  sunt,  et  qui  omnia  ad  unum  trahit,  et 
omnia  in  uno  videt,  potest  stabilis  esse  et  in  Deo  pacificus 
permanere"  {De  Im.  Xti.  lib.  i ;  cap.  3,  §  2).  So  thought 
Froebel,  and  his  great  longing  was  to  refer  all  things  to  one 
and  see  all  things  in  one.  However  little  we  may  share  this 
longing  we  must  admit  that  it  is  a  natural  outcome  from  the 
Christian  religion.  If  there  i.s  One  in  Whom  all  "  hve  and 
move  and  have  their  being,"  everything  should  be  referred 
to  Him.  As  Froebel  says,  "  In  AUem  wirkt  und  schafft  Ein 
Leben,  Weil  das  Leben  AH'  ein  einz'ger  Gott  gegeben.  (In 
everything  there  works  and  stirs  one  life,  because  to  all  One 
God  has  given  life.)"  So  long  then  as  we  remain  Chi'stians 
we   must  agree   with   Froebel   that   all  true   education   is 

•  For  this  quotation,  and  for  much  besides  (as  will  appear  later  on), 
I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  H.  Courthope  Bowen.  See  his  paper  FroebeW 
Education  0/  Man. 


FROEBEL.  399 

Froebel's  ideal. 


founded  on  Religion.  Perhaps  in  the  end  we  may  adopt 
his  high  ideal  and  say  with  him,  "Education  should  lead 
and  guide  man  to  clearness  concerning  himself  and  in 
himself,  to  peace  with  nature,  and  to  unity  with  God ; 
hence,  it  should  lift  him  to  a  knowledge  of  himself  and 
of  mankind,  to  a  knowledge  of  God  and  of  Nature,  and  to 
the  pure  and  holy  life  to  which  such  knowledge  leads." 
(£.  o/M.,  Hailmann's  t.,  5.)  "The  object  of  education  is 
the  realization  of  a  faithful,  pure,  inviolate,  and  hence  holy 

life"  (7^.4)-  \ 

§  17.  This  is  indeed  a  high  ide^lj  and  we  naturally  ask, 
If  we  would  work  towards  it  what  road  would  Froebel  point 
out  to  us  ?  This  brings  us  to  his  theory  of  development  or, 
as  it  has  been  called  since  Darwin,  evolution.  The  idea  of 
organic  growth  was  first  definitely  applied  to  the  young  by 
Pestalozzi,  but  it  was  more  clearly  and  consistently  applied 
by  Froebel.  It  has  gone  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer; 
and  though  far  indeed  from  being  accepted  by  the  teaching 
profession  of  this  age,  it  is  likely  to  have  a  vast  influence  on 
the  practice  of  those  who  will  come  after  them.  I  therefore 
give  the  following  statement  of  it,  which  seems  to  me  ex- 
cellent : — 

"The  first  thing  to  note  in  the  idea  of  development  is 
that  it  indicates,  not  an  increase  in  bulk  or  quantity  (though 
it  may  include  this),  but  an  increase  in  complexity  of  struc- 
ture, an  improvement  in  power,  skill,  and  variety  in  the 
performance  of  natural  functions.  We  say  that  a  thing  is 
fully  developed  when  its  internal  organisation  is  perfect  in 
every  detail,  and  when  it  can  perform  all  its  natural  actions 
or  functions  perfectly.  If  we  apply  this  distinction  to  mind, 
an  increase  in  bulk  will  be  represented  by  an  increase  in 
the   amount  of    material   retained    in   the    mind,   in   the 


400  FROEBEL. 

Theory  of  development. 

memory  ;  development  will  be  a  perfecting  of  the  structure 
of  the  mind  itself,  an  increase  of  power  and  skill  and  variety 
in  dealing  with  knowledge,  and  in  putting  knowledge  to  all 
its  natural  uses.     The  next  thing  to  consider  is  how  this 
development  is  produced.     How  can  we  aid  in  promoting 
this  change  from  germ  to  complete  organism,  from  partially 
developed  thing  to  more  highly  developed  thing?     The 
answer  comes  from  every  part  of  creation  with  ever-increas- 
ing clearness  and  emphasis — development  is  produced  by 
exercise  of  function,  use  of  faculty.     Neglect  or  disuse  of 
any  part  of  an  organism  leads  to  the  dwindling,  and  some- 
times even  to  the  disappearance,  of  that  part.     And  this 
applies  not  only  to   individuals,   but  stretches  also  from 
parent  to  child,  from  generation  to  generation,  constituting 
then  what  we  call  heredity,  or  what  Froebel  calls  the  con- 
nectedness of  humanity.     Slowly  through  successive  genera- 
tions a  faculty  or  organ  may  dwindle  and  decay,  or  may  be 
brought   to   greater   and  greater  perfection.      As  Froebel 
puts  it,  humanity  past,  present,   and   future   is   one   con- 
tinuous whole.     The  amount  of  development,  then,  possible 
in  any  particular  case  plainly  depends  partly  on  the  original 
outfit,  and  partly  (and  as  a  rule  in  a  greater  measure)  on 
the  opportunities  there  have   been   for  exercise,   and   the 
use  made  of  those  opportunities.     If  we  wish  to  develop 
the  hand,   we   must   exercise   the   hand.     If  we  wish  to 
develop  the  body,  we  must  exercise  the  body.     If  we  wish 
to  develop  the  mind,  we  must  exercise  the  mind.     If  we 
wish  to  develop  the  whole  human  being,  we  must  exercise 
the  whole  human  being.      But  will  any  exercise   suffice  ? 
Again  the  answer  is  clear.      Only  that  exercise  which  is 
always  in  harmony  with  the  nature  of  the  thing,  and  which 
is  always  proportioned  to  the  strength  of  the  thing,  produces 


FROEBEL.  401 

Development  thro*  self-activity. 

true  development.  All  other  exercise  is  partially  or  wholly 
hurtful.  And  another  condition,  evident  in  every  case, 
becomes  still  more  evident  when  we  apply  these  laws  to  the 
mind.  To  produce  development  most  truly  and  effectively, 
the  exercise  must  arise  from  and  be  sustained  by  the  thing's 
own  activity — its  own  natural  powers,  and  all  of  them  (as 
far  as  these  are  in  any  sense  connected  with  the  activity 
proposed)  should  be  awakened  and  become  naturally  active. 
If,  for  instance,  we  desire  to  further  the  development  of  a 
plant,  what  we  have  to  do  is  to  induce  the  plant  (and  the 
whole  of  it)  to  become  active  in  its  own  natural  way,  and 
to  help  it  to  sustain  that  activity.  We  may  abridge  the 
time  ;  we  may  modify  the  result ;  but  we  must  act  through 
and  by  the  plant's  own  activity.  This  activity  of  a  thing's 
own  self  we  call  self -activity  {E.  of.  M.,  §  9).  We 
generally  consider  the  mind  in  the  light  of  its  three  activities 
of  knoiving,  feeling,  and  willing.  The  exercise  which  aims  at 
producing  mental  development  must  be  in  harmony  with 
the  nature  of  knowing,  feeling,  and  willing,  and  continually 
in  proportion  to  their  strength.  And,  further,  it  is  found 
that  the  more  the  activity  is  that  of  the  whole  mind,  the 
more  it  is  the  mind's  own  activity — self-produced,  and 
self-maintained,  and  self-directed — the  better  is  the  result. 
In  other  words,  knowing,  feeling,  and  willing  must  all  take 
their  rightful  share  in  the  exercise  ;  and,  in  particular,  feel- 
ing and  willing — the  mind's  powers  of  prompting  and 
nourishing,  of  maintaining  and  directing  its  own  activities — 
must  never  be  neglected"  (H.  C.  Bowen  on  Ed.  of  M.). 

§  18.  "A  divine  message  or  eternal  regulation  of  the 
Universe  there  verily  is,  in  regard  to  every  conceivable 
procedure  and  affair  of  man  ;  faithfully  following  this,  said 
procedure   or   affair  will    prosper     .     .     .     not   following 


402  FROEBEL. 


True  idea  found  in  Nature. 


this  .  .  .  destruction  and  wreck  are  certain  for  every 
affair."  These  words  of  Carlyle's  express  Froebel's  thought 
about  education.  Before  attempting  to  educate  we  must 
do  all  we  can  to  ascertain  the  divine  message  and  must 
then  direct  our  proceedings  by  it.  The  divine  message 
must  be  learnt  according  to  Froebel  by  studying  the  nature 
of  the  organism  we  have  to  assist  in  developing.  Each 
human  being  must  "  develop  from  within,  self-active  and 
free,  in  accordance  with  the  eternal  law.  This  is  the 
problem  and  the  aim  of  all  education  in  instruction  and 
training ;  there  can  be  and  should  be  no  other "  {Ed.  of 
M.,  13).  For  "all  has  come  forth  from  the  Divine,  from 
God,  and  is  through  God  alone  conditioned.  To  this  it 
is  that  all  things  owe  their  existence — to  the  Divine  working 
in  them.  The  Divine  element  that  works  in  each  thing  is 
the  true  idea  {das  Wesen)  of  the  thing."  Therefore  "  the 
desfiny  and  calling  of  all  things  is  to  develop  their  true  idea, 
and  in  so  doing  to  reveal  God  in  outward  and  through 
passing  forms." 

§  19.  What  we  must  think  of  then  is  the  "true  idea" 
which  each  child  should  develop.  How  is  this  idea  to  be 
ascertained?  In  other  words,  how  are  we  to  learn  the 
Divine  Message  about  the  bringing  up  of  children  ?  This 
Message  is  given  us  through  the  works  of  God.  "  In  the 
creation,  in  nature  and  the  order  of  the  material  world,  and 
in  the  progress  of  mankind,  God  has  given  us  the  true  type 
(  Urbild)  of  education." 

§  20.  So  Froebel  would  have  all  educators  lay  to  heart 
the  great  principle  of  the  Baconian  philosophy :  We  com- 
mand Nature  only  by  obeying  her.  They  are  to  be  very 
cautious  how  they  interfere,  and  the  education  they  give  is 
to  be  "passive,  following."      Even  in  teaching  they  must 


FROEBEL.  403 

God  acts  and  man  acts. 

bear  in  mind,  that  "  the  purpose  of  teaching  is  to  bring  ever 
more  out  of  man  rather  than  to  put  more  and  more  into 
hiip"  {Ed.  of  M.,  279.)  Froebel  in  fact  taught  the 
Festalozzian  doctrine  that  the  function  of  the  educator 
was  that  cf  "  benevolent  superintendence."* 

§21.  But  if  Froebel  would  thus  limit  the  action  of  the 
educator  he  would  greatly  extend  the  action  of  those 
educated ;  and  here  we  see  the  great  principle  with  which 
the  name  of  Froebel  is  likely  to  be  permanently  associated. 
"The  starting-point  of  all  that  appears,  of  all  that  exists, 
and  therefore  of  all  intellectual  conception,  is  act,  action. 
From  the  act,  from  action,  must  therefore  start  true  human 
education,  the  developing  education  of  the  man  ;  in  action, 
in  acting,  it  must  be  rooted  and  must  spring  up.  .  .  . 
Living,  acting,  conceiving, — these  must  form  a  triple  chord 
within  every  child  of  man,  though  the  sound  now  of  this 
string,  now  of  that,  may  preponderate,  and  then  again  of 
two  together," 

§  22.  Many  thinkers  before  Froebel  had  seen  the  trans- 
cendent importance  of  action  ;  but  Froebel  not  only  based 
everything  upon  it,  but  he  based  it  upon  God.  "God 
creates  and  works  productively  in  uninterrupred  continuity. 
Each  thought  of  God  is  a  work,  a  deed"  {Ed.  of  M.,  §  23). 
As  Jesus  has  said :    **  My  Father  worketh  hitherto  and  I 

•  The  educator  as  teacher  has  his  activity  limited,  according  to 
D  DeGarmo  to  these  two  things  ;  "  (i)  The  preparation  of  the  child's 
miad  for  a  rapid  and  effective  assimilation  of  new  knowledge  ;  (2)  The 
pi csentation  of  the  matter  of  instruction  in  such  order  and  manner  2s 
will  best  conduce  to  the  mo>t  efTeciive  assimilation "  (Essentials  of 
Method  by  Chas.  DeGarmo,  Boston,  U.S.,  D.  C.  Heath,  1889). 
Besides  this  he  must  make  his  pupils  use  their  knowledge  both  new  anH. 
old,  and  reproduce  it  in  fresh  connexions. 


404  FROEBEL. 

The  formative  and  creative  instinct. 

work "  (St.  John  v,  1 7).  From  this  it  follows  that,  since 
God  created  man  in  his  own  image,  "  man  should  create 
and  bring  forth  like  God  "  {Ed.  of  M.,  ib.).  "  He  who  will 
early  learn  to  recognise  the  Creator  must  early  exercise  his 
own  power  of  action  with  the  consciousness  that  he  is  bring- 
ing about  what  is  good  ;  for  the  doing  good  is  the  link 
between  the  creature  and  the  Creator,  and  the  conscious 
doing  of  it  the  conscious  connexion,  the  true  living  union 
of  the  man  with  God,  of  the  individual  man  as  of  the  human 
race,  and  is  therefore  at  once  the  starting  point  and  the 
eternal  aim  of  all  education."  Elsewhere  he  says  :  "  We 
become  truly  God-like  in  diligence  and  industry,  in  working 
and  doing,  which  are  accompanied  by  the  clear  perception 
or  even  by  the  vaguest  feeling  that  thereby  we  represent  the 
inner  in  the  outer ;  that  we  give  body  to  spirit,  and  form  to 
thought ;  that  we  render  visible  the  invisible ;  that  we 
impart  an  outward,  finite,  transient  being  to  life  in  the 
spirit.  Through  this  God-likeness  we  rise  more  and  more 
to  a  true  knowledge  of  God,  to  insight  into  His  Spirit  j 
and  thus,  inwardly  and  outwardly,  God  comes  ever 
nearer  to  us.  Therefore  Jesus  says  of  the  poor,  '  Theirs 
is  the  kingdom  of  heaven,'  if  they  could  but  see  and  know 
it  and  practice  it  in  diligence  and  industry,  in  productive 
and  creative  work.  Of  children  too  is  the  kingdom  of 
heaven ;  for  unchecked  by  the  presumption  and  conceit  of 
adults  they  yield  themselves  in  child-like  trust  and  cheerful- 
ness to  their  formative  and  creative  instinct "  {Ed.  of  J/., 

§  23,  P-  30- 

§  23.  This  "  formative  and  creative  instinct "  which  as 
we  must  suppose  has  existed  in  all  children  in  all  nations 
and  in  all  ages  of  the  world,  Froebel  was  the  first  to  take 
duly  into  account  for  education.     Pestalozzi  saw  the  iin« 


FROEBEL.  405 


Rendering  the  inner  outer. 


portance  of  getting  children  to  think^  and  to  think  about 
their  material  surroundings.  These  the  child  can  observe 
and  search  into  3  and  in  doing  this  he  may  discover  what  is 
not  at  first  obvious  to  sight  or  touch  and  may  even  ascertain 
relations  between  the  several  parts  of  the  same  thing  or 
connexions  between  different  things  compared  together. 
All  these  discoveries  may  be  made  by  the  child's  self- 
activity,  but  only  on  one  condition,  viz. :  that  the  child  is 
interested.  But  in  the  search  interest  soon  flags  and  then 
observation  comes  to  an  end.  Besides,  even  while  it  lasts 
in  full  vigour  the  activity  is  mental  only ;  it  is  concerned 
with  perceiving,  taking  in ;  and  for  development  something 
more  is  needed  3  the  organism  must  not  only  take  in,  it 
must  also  give  out.  And  so  we  find  in  children  a  restless 
eagerness  to  touch,  pull  about,  and  change  the  condition 
of  things  around  them.  When  this  activity  of  theirs,  instead 
of  being  checked  is  properly  directed,  the  children  are 
delighted  in  recognising  desirable  results  which  they  them- 
selves have  brought  about ;  especially  those  which  give 
expression  to  what  is  their  own  thought.  In  this  way  the 
child  "  renders  the  inner  outer ;"  and  in  thus  satisfying  his 
creative  instinct  he  is  led  to  exercise  some  faculties  both  of 
mind  and  body. 

§  24.  The  prominence  which  Froebel  gave  to  action,  his 
doctrine  that  man  is  primarily  a  doer  and  even  a  creator, 
and  that  he  learns  only  through  "  self-activity,"  may  pro- 
duce great  changes  in  educational  methods  generally,  and 
not  simply  in  the  treatment  of  children  too  young  for 
schooling.  But  it  was  to  the  first  stage  of  life  that  Froebel 
paid  the  greatest  attention,  and  it  is  over  this  stage  that 
his  influence  is  gradually  extending.  Froebel  held  that  each 
age  has  a  completeness  of  its  own  ("  First  the  blade,  then 


406  FROEBEL. 

Care  for  "  young  plants."    Kindergarten. 

the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear "),  and  that  the  per- 
fection of  the  later  stage  can  be  attained  only  through  the 
perfection  of  the  earUer.  If  the  infant  is  what  he  should  be 
as  an  infant,  and  the  child  as  a  child,  he  will  become  what 
he  should  be  as  a  boy,  just  as  naturally  as  new  shoots 
spring  from  the  healthy  plant.  Every  stage,  then,  must  be 
cared  for  and  tended  in  such  a  way  that  it  may  attain  its 
own  perfection.  But  as  Bacon  says  with  reference  to 
education,  the  gardener  bestows  most  care  on  the  young 
plants,  and  it  was  "  the  young  plants "  for  whom  Froebel 
designed  his  Kindergarten.  Like  Pestalozzi  he  attached 
the  very  highest  importance  to  giving  instruction  to  mothers. 
But  he  would  not  like  Pestalozzi  leave  young  children 
entirely  in  the  mother's  hands.  There  was  something  to 
be  done  for  them  which  even  the  ideal  mother  in  the  ideal 
family  could  not  do.  Pestalozzi  held  that  the  child  be- 
longed to  the  family.  Fichte  on  the  other  hand  claimed 
it  for  society  and  the  state.  Froebel,  whose  mind,  like 
that  of  our  own  theologian  Frederick  Maurice,  delighted 
in  harmonising  apparent  contradictions,  and  who  taught 
that  "  all  progress  lay  through  opposites  to  their  reconcilia- 
tion," maintained  that  the  child  belongs  both  to  the  family 
and  to  society ;  and  he  would  therefore  have  children 
prepare  for  society  by  spending  some  hours  of  the  day  in  a 
common  life  and  in  well-organised  common  employ- 
ments. 

§  25.  His  study  of  children  showed  him  that  one  of  their 
most  striking  characteristics  was  restlessness.  This  was, 
first,  restlessness  of  body,  delight  in  mere  motion  of  the 
limbs ;  and,  secondly,  restlessness  of  mind,  a  constant 
curiosity  about  whatever  came  within  the  range  of  the 
stnses,  and  especially  a  desire  to  examine  with  the  hand 


FROEBEL.  407 

Child's  restlessness :  how  to  use  it. 

every  unknown  object  within  reach.*  Children's  fondness 
for  using  their  hands  was  especially  noted  by  Froebel ;  and 
he  found  that  they  delighted,  not  merely  in  examining  by 
touch,  but  also  in  altering  whatever  they  could  alter,  and 
further  that  they  endeavoured  to  imitate  known  forms 
whether  by  drawing  or  whenever  they  could  get  any  kind  of 
plastic  material  by  modelling.  Besides  remarking  in  them 
these  various  activities,  he  saw  that  children  were  sociable 
and  needed  the  sympathy  of  companions.  There  was,  too, 
in  them  a  growing  moral  nature,  passions,  affections,  and 
conscience,  which  needed  to  be  controlled,  responded  to, 
cultivated.  Both  the  restraints  and  the  opportunities 
incident  to  a  well-organised  community  would  be  beneficial 
to  their  moral  nature,  and  prove  a  cure  for  selfishness. 

§  26.  As  all  education  was  to  be  sought  in  rightly  directed 
but  spontaneous  action,  Froebel  considered  how  the  children 
in  this  community  should  be  employed.  At  that  age  their 
most  natural  employment  is  play,  especially  as  Wordsworth 
has  pointed  out,  games  in  which  they  imitate  and  "  con  the 
parts "  they  themselves  will  have  to  fill  in  after  years. 
Froebel  agreed  with  Montaigne  that  the  games  of  children 
were  "  their  most  serious  occupations,"  and  with  Locke  that 
"all  the  plays  and  diversions  of  children  should  be  directed 
towards  good  and  useful  habits,  or  else  they  will  introduce 

•  "Little  children,"  says  Joseph  Payne,  "are  scarcely  ever  contented 
with  simply  doing  nothing ;  and  tlieir  fidgeiiness  and  unrest,  which 
often  give  mothers  and  teachers  so  much  anxiety,  are  merely  the 
strugglings  of  the  soul  to  get,  through  the  body,  some  employment  for 
its  powers.  Supply  this  want,  give  them  an  object  to  work  upon,  and 
you  solve  the  problem.  The  divergence  and  distraction  of  the  faculties 
cease  as  they  converge  upon  the  work,  and  the  mind  is  at  rest  in  its 
very  occupation."     V.  to  German  Schools. 


408  FROEBEL. 


Employments  in  Kindergarten. 


ill  ones"  {Th.  c.  Ed.,  §  130).  So  he  invented  a  course  of 
occupations,  a  great  part  of  which  consisted  in  social  games. 
Many  of  the  names  are  connected  with  the  "Gifts,"  as  he 
called  the  series  of  simple  playthings  provided  for  the 
children,  the  first  being  the  ball,  "  the  type  of  unity."  The 
"  gifts  "  are  chiefly  not  mere  playthings  but  materials  which 
the  children  work  up  in  their  own  way,  thus  gaining  scope 
for  their  power  of  doing  and  inventing  and  creating.  The 
artistic  faculty  was  much  thought  of  by  Froebel,  and,  as  in 
the  education  of  the  ancients,  the  sense  of  rhythm  in  sound 
and  motion  was  cultivated  by  music  and  poetry  introduced 
in  the  games.  Much  care  was  to  be  given  to  the  training 
of  the  senses,  especially  those  of  sight,  sound,  and  touch. 
Intuition  {Anschauung)  was  to  be  recognised  as  the  true 
basis  of  knowledge,  and  though  stories  were  to  be  told,  and 
there  was  to  be  much  intercourse  in  the  way  of  social  chat, 
instruction  of  the  imparting  and  "  learning-up  "  kind  was  to 
be  excluded.  There  was  to  be  no  "  dead  knowledge  ; "  in 
fact  Froebel  like  Pestalozzi  endeavoured  to  do  for  the  child 
what  Bacon  nearly  2co  years  before  had  done  for  the 
philosopher.  Bacon  showed  the  philosopher  that  the  way 
to  study  Nature  was  not  to  learn  what  others  had  surmised 
but  to  go  straight  to  Nature  and  use  his  own  senses  and  his 
own  powers  of  observation.  Pestalozzi  and  Froebel  wished 
children  to  learn  in  this  way  as  well  as  philosophers. 

§  27.  Schools  for  very  young  children  existed  before 
Froebel's  Kindergarten,  but  they  had  been  thought  of  moie 
in  the  interest  of  the  mothers  than  of  the  children.  It  was 
for  the  sake  of  the  mothers  that  Oberlin  established  them 
in  the  Vosges  more  than  a  century  ago,  his  first  Condudrices 
de  rEnfance  being  peasant  women,  Sara  Banzet  and  Louise 
Scheppler.     In  the  early  part  of  this  century  the  notion  was 


FROEBEL.  409 

No  schoolwork  in  Kindergarten. 

taken  up  by  James  Buchanan  and  Samuel  Wilderspin  in 
this  country  (see  James  Leitch's  Practical  Educationists) 
and  by  J.  M.  D.  Cochin  in  France.  But  Froebel's  con- 
ception differed  from  that  of  the  "  Infant  School."  His 
object  was  purely  educational  but  he  would  have  no 
"schooling."  He  called  these  communities  of  children 
Kindergarten,  Gardens  of  children,  i.e.,  enclosures  in  which 
young  human  plants  are  nurtured.*  The  children's  em- 
ployment is  to  be  play.  But  any  occupation  in  which 
children  delight  is  play  to  them ;  and  Froebel's  series  of 
employments,  while  they  are  in  this  sense  play  to  the 
children,  have  nevertheless,  as  seen  from  the  adult  point  of 
view,  a  distinctly  educational  object.  This  object,  as  Froebel 
himself  describes  it,  is  "  to  give  the  children  employment  in 
agreement  with  their  whole  nature,  to  strengthen  their 
bodies,  to  exercise  their  senses,  to  engage  their  awakening 
mind,  and  through  their  senses  to  bring  them  acquainted 
with  nature  and  their  fellow-creatures ;  it  is  especially  to 
guide  aright  the  heart  and  the  affections,  and  to  lead  them 
to  the  original  ground  of  all  life,  to  unity  with  themselves." 
§  28.  No  less  than  six-and-thirty  years  ago  Henry 
Barnard  (in  his  Report  to  Governor  of  Connecticut,  1854) 
declared  the  Kindergarten  to  be  "  by  far  the  most  original, 
attractive,  and  philosophical  form  of  infant  development  the 
world  has  yet   seen."      Since   then   it  has   spread   in  all 

*  I  entirely  agree  with  Joseph  Payne  that  where  the  language  spoken 
is  not  German,  it  would  be  well  to  discard  Kindergarten,  Kinder gdrtner, 
and  Kindergdrtnerin.  All  who  have  to  do  with  children  should  master 
some  great  principles  taught  by  Froebel,  but  there  is  no  need  for  them 
to  learn  German  or  to  use  German  words.  The  French  seem  satisfied 
with  Jardin  d'Enfants,  but  we  are  not  likely  to  be  with  Children- 
Garden.     Playschool  might  do. 


4IO  FROEBEL. 

Without  the  idea  the  "gifts  "  fail. 

civilised  lands,  and  in  many  of  them  there  are  now  publu 
Kindergartens,  the  first  I  believe  having  been  established 
in  1873  by  Dr.  William  T.  Harris  in  St.  Louis,  Mo.  B.it 
Froebel's  ideas  are  not  so  easily  got  hold  of  as  his  "  Gifts," 
and  the  real  extension  of  his  system  may  be  by  no  means 
so  great  as  it  seems.  "  The  Kindergarten  system  in  the 
hands  of  one  who  understands  it,"  says  Dr.  James  Ward, 
"  produces  admirable  results ;  but  it  is  apt  to  be  too 
mechanical  and  formal.  There  does  not  seem  room  for  the 
individuality  of  a  child,  to  which  all  free  play  possible 
should  be  given  in  the  earliest  years."  (In  Parents'  Review 
Ap.  1890.)  And  Mr.  Courthope  Bowen  has  well  said: 
"  Kindergarten  work  without  the  Kindergarten  idea,  like  a 
body  without  a  soul,  is  subject  to  rapid  degeneration  and 
decay."  So  perhaps  it  will  in  the  end  prove  that  Froebel  in 
his  Education  0/ Man  which  is  "a  book  with  seven  seals" 
has  left  us  a  more  precious  legacy  than  in  his  "  Gifts  "  and 
Occupations  which  are  so  popular  and  so  easily  adopted. 

§  29.  It  has  been  well  said  that  "  the  essence  of  stupidity 
is  in  the  demand  for  final  opinions."  How  our  thoughts 
have  widened  about  education  since  a  man  like  Dr.  Johnson 
could  assert,  "  Education  is  as  well  known,  and  has  long 
been  as  well  known,  as  ever  it  can  be  !"*  (Hill's  Boswell's 
J.  ij,  407.)  The  astronomers  of  the  Middle  Ages  might 
as  well  have  asserted  that  nothing  more  could  ever  be 
known  about  astronomy. 

Was  Froebel  what  he  believed  himself  to  be,  the  Kepler 


*  Contrast  this  with  what  has  been  said  by  an  eminent  thinker  of  our 
time  :  "  No  art  of  equal  importance  to  mankind  has  been  so  little  in- 
vestigated scientifically  as  the  art  of  teaching."  Sir  H.  S.  Maine, 
quoted  in  J.  H.  Hoose's  M.  of  Teaching. 


FROEBEL.  411 


The  New  Education  and  the  old. 

or  the  Newton  of  the  educational  system  ?  Whoso  is  wise 
will  not  during  the  nineteenth  century  lay  claim  to  a  "  final 
opinion  "  on  this  point.  But  the  "  New  Educatiqn  "  seems 
gaining  ground.  F.  W.  Parker  emphatically  declares  "  the 
Kindergarten "  (by  which  he  probably  means  Froebel's 
encouragement  of  self-activity)  to  be  "  the  most  important  far- 
reaching  educational  reform  of  the  nineteenth  century." 
We  sometimes  see  it  questioned  whether  the  "  New  Educa- 
tion "  has  any  proper  claim  to  its  title;  but  the  education 
which  Dr.  Johnson  considered  final  and  which  seems  to  us 
old  aimed  at  learning ;  and  the  education  which  aims  not 
at  learning,  but  at  developing  through  self-activity  is  so 
different  from  this  that  it  may  well  be  called  New.  If  we 
consider  the  platform  of  the  New  Educationists  as  it  stands, 
e.g.,  in  the  New  York  School  Journal,  we  shall  find  that  if  it 
is  not  all  new  in  theory  it  would  be  substantially  new  in 
practice. 

§  30.  Let  us  look  at  a  brief  statement  of  what  the  "  New 
Education  "  requires  : — 

1.  Each  study  must  be  valued  in  proportion  as  it  develops 
power;  and  power  is  developed  by  self-activity. 

2.  The  memory  must  be  employed  in  strict  subservience 
to  the  higher  faculties  of  the  mind. 

3.  Whatever  instruction  is  given,  it  must  be  adapted  to 
the  actual  state  of  the  pupil,  and  not  ruled  by  the  wants  of 
the  future  boy  or  man. 

4.  More  time  must  be  given  to  the  study  of  nature  and  to 
modern  language  and  literature ;  less  to  the  ancient 
languages. 

5.  The  body  must  be  educated  as  well  as  the  mind. 

6.  Rich  and  poor  alike  must  be  taught  to  use  their  eyes 
and  hands. 


412  FROEBEL. 

The  old  still  vigorous. 

7.  The  higher  education  of  women  must  be  cared  for  no 
less  than  that  of  men. 

8.  Teachers,  no  less  than  doctors,  must  go  through  a 
course  of  professional  training. 

To  these  there  must  in  time  be  added  another : 

9.  All  methods  shall  have  a  scientific  foundation,  i.e., 
they  shall  be  based  on  the  laws  of  the  mind,  or  shall  have 
been  tested  by  those  laws. 

§  31.  When  this  program  is  adopted,  even  as  the 
object  of  our  efforts,  we  shall,  indeed,  have  a  New  Educa- 
tion, At  present  the  encouragement  of  self-activity  is 
thought  of,  if  at  all,  only  as  a  "counsel  of  perfection  "  Our 
school  work  is  chiefly  mechanical  and  will  long  remain  so. 
*'  From  the  primary  school  to  the  college  productive  creative 
doing  is  almost  wholly  excluded.  Knowledge  in  its 
barrenest  form  is  communicated,  and  tested  in  the  barrenest, 
wordiest  way  possible.  Never  is  the  learner  taught  or 
permitted  to  apply  his  knowledge  to  even  second-hand 
life-purpose.  ...  So  inveterate  is  the  habit  of  the 
school  that  the  Kindergarten  itself,  although  invented  by 
the  deep-feeling  and  far-seeing  Froebel  for  the  very  purpose 
of  correcting  this  fault,  has  in  most  cases  fallen  a  victim  to 
its  influence."  So  says  W.  H.  Hailmann  {Kindergarten, 
May,  1888)  and  those  who  best  know  what  usually  goes  on 
in  the  school-room  are  the  least  likely  to  differ  from  him. 

§  32.  During  the  last  thirty  years  I  have  spent  the 
greatest  part  of  my  working  hours  in  a  variety  of  school- 
rooms; and  if  my  school  experience  has  shown  me  that  our 
advance  is  slow,  my  study  of  the  Reformers  convinces  me 
that  it  is  sure. 

"  Ring  out  the  old,  ring  in  the  new  !' 


FROEBEL.  413 


Science  the  thought  of  God.    Some  Froebelians. 

It  has  been  well  said  that  to  study  science  is  to  study  the 
thoughts  of  God ;  and  thus  it  is  that  all  true  educational 
Reformers  declare  the  thoughts  of  God  to  us.  "  A  divine 
msssage,  o:  eternal  regulation  of  the  Universe,  there  veiily 
is  in  regard  to  every  conceivable  procedure  and  affair  of 
man  ;"  and  it  behoves  us  to  ascertain  what  that  message  is 
in  regard  to  the  immensely  important  procedure  and  affair 
of  bringing  up  children.  After  innumerable  mistakes  we 
seem  by  degrees  to  be  getting  some  notion  of  it ;  and  such 
insight  as  we  have  we  owe  to  those  who  have  contiibuted 
to  the  science  of  education.  Among  these  there  are 
probably  no  greater  names  than  the  names  of  Pestalozzi  and 
Froebel. 


Froebel's  Education  of  Man,  trans,  by  W.  N.  Hailmann,  is  a  vol.  of 
Appleton's  Series,  ed.  by  Dr.  W.  T.  Harris.  Tlie  Autobiography  trans., 
by  Michaelis  and  Moore,  is  published  by  Sonnenschein.  The  Mutter-u- 
K. -lieder  have  been  trans,  by  Miss  Lord  (London,  Rice).  Reminiscences 
of  Froebel  by  the  Baroness  Marenholz-Biilow,  is  trans,  by  Mr.  Horace 
Mann.  Ike  Child  and  Child  Nature  is  trans,  from  the  Baroness  by 
Miss  A.  M.  Christie.  The  Froebel  lit.  is  now  immense.  I  will  simply 
mention  some  of  those  who  have  expounded  Froebel  in  English:  Miss 
Shirreff,  Miss  E.  A.  Manning,  Miss  Lyschinska,  Miss  Heerwart,  Mdme. 
De  Portugal],  Miss  Peabody,  H.  C.  Bowen,  F.  W.  Parker,  W.  N. 
Hailmann,  Joseph  Payne,  W.  T.  Harris,  are  the  names  that  first  suggest 
themselves.  Henry  Barnard's  Kindergarten  and  Child  Culture  is  a 
valuable  collection  of  papers. 


29 


XVIII. 

JACOTOT,  A  METHODIZER. 


1770-1840. 


§  1.  We  are  now  by  degrees  becoming  convinced  that 
teachers,  Hke  everyorfe  else  who  undertakes  skilled  labour, 
should  be  trained  before  they  seek  an  engagement.  This 
has  led  to  a  great  increase  in  the  number  of  Normal  Schools. 
In  some  of  these  schools  it  has  already  been  discovered  that 
while  the  study  of  principles  requires  much  time  and  the 
application  of  much  intellectual  force,  the  study  of  methods 
is  a  far  simpler  matter  and  can  be  knocked  off  in  a  short 
time  and  with  no  intellectual  force  at  all.  Methods  are 
special  ways  of  doing  things,  and  when  it  has  been  settled 
what  is  to  be  done  and  why,  a  knowledge  of  the  methods 
available  adds  greatly  to  a  teacher's  power ;  but  the  what 
and  the  why  demand  our  attention  before  the  how,  and  the 
study  of  methods  disconnected  from  principles  leads  straight 
to  the  prison-house  of  all  the  teachers'  higher  faculties — 
routine. 

§  2.  I  have  called  Jacotot  a  methodizer  because  he 
invented  a  special  method  and  wished  everything  to  be 
taught  by  it.  But  in  advocating  this  method  he  appeals  to 
principles  ;  and  his  principles  are  so  important  that  at  least 


JACOTOT.  415 

Self-teaching. 

one  man  great  in  educational  science,  Joseph  Payne,  always 
spoke  of  him  as  his  master. 

§  3.  In  the  following  summary  of  Jacotot's  system  1 
am  largely  indebted  to  Joseph  Payne's  Lectures,  which  he 
published  in  the  Educational  Times  in  1867,  and  which  I 
believe  Dr.  J.  F.  Payne  has  lately  reprinted  in  a  volume  of 
his  father's  collected  papers. 

§  4.  Jacotot  was  born  at  Dijon,  of  humble  parentage,  in 
1770.  Even  as  a  boy  he  showed  his  preference  for  "self- 
teaching."  We  are  told  that  he  rejoiced  greatly  in  the  ac- 
quisition of  all  kinds  of  knowledge  that  could  be  gained  by 
his  own  efforts,  while  he  steadily  resisted  what  was  imposed  on 
him  by  authority.  He  v/as,  however,  early  distinguished  by 
his  acquirements,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty-five  was  appointed 
sub-director  of  the  Polytechnic  School.  Some  years  after- 
wards he  became  Professor  of  "  the  Method  of  Sciences  "  at 
Dijon,  and  it  was  here  that  his  method  of  instruction  first 
attracted  attention.  "  Instead  of  pouring  forth  a  flood  of 
information  on  the  subject  under  attention  from  his  own 
ample  stores — explaining  everj'thing,  and  thus  too  frequently 
superseding  in  a  great  degree  the  pupil's  own  investigation 
of  it — Jacotot,  after  a  simple  statement  of  the  subject,  with 
its  leading  divisions,  boldly  started  it  as  a  quarry  for  the 
class  to  hunt  down,  and  invited  every  member  of  it  to  take 
part  in  the  chase."  All  were  free  to  ask  questions,  to  raise 
objections,  to  suggestanswers.  The,Professor  himself  did  little 
more  than  by  leading  questions  put  them  on  the  right  scent. 
He  was  afterwards  Professor  of  Ancient  and  Oriental  Lan- 
guages, of  Mathematics,  and  of  Roman  Law ;  and  he  pursued 
the  same  method,  we  are  told,  with  uniform  success.  Being 
compelled  to  leave  France  as  an  enemy  of  the  Bourbons,  he 
was  appointed,  in  181 8,  when  he  was  forty-eight  years  old, 


4l6  JACOTOT. 

I.  All  can  learn. 


to  the  Professorship  of  the  French  Language  and  Literature 
at  the  University  of  Louvain.  The  celebrated  teacher  was 
received  with  enthusiasm,  but  he  soon  met  with  an  un- 
expected difficulty.  Many  members  of  his  large  class  knew 
no  language  but  the  Flemish  and  Dutch,  and  of  these  he 
himself  was  totally  ignorant.  He  was,  therefore,  forced  to 
consider  how  to  teach  without  talking  to  his  pupils.  The 
plan  he  adopted  was  as  follows  : — He  gave  the  young 
Flemings  copies  of  Fenelon's  "  Telemaque,"  with  the  French 
on  one  side,  and  a  Dutch  translation  on  the  other.  This 
they  had  to  study  for  themselves,  comparing  the  two 
languages,  and  learning  the  French  by  heart.  They  were 
to  go  over  the  same  ground  again  and  again,  and  as  soon 
as  possible  they  were  to  give  in  French,  however  bad,  the 
substance  of  those  parts  which  they  had  not  yet  committed 
to  memor}'.  This  method  was  found  to  succeed  marvel- 
lously. Jacotot  attributed  its  success  to  the  fact  that  the 
students  had  learnt  entirely  by  the  efforts  of  their  own  minds ^ 
and  that,  though  working  under  his  superintendence,  they 
had  been,  in  fact,  their  own  teachers.  Hence  he  proceeded 
to  generalise,  and  by  degrees  arrived  at  a  series  of  astounding 
paradoxes.  These  paradoxes  at  first  did  their  work  well, 
and  made  noise  enough  in  the  world  ;  but  Jacotot  seems 
to  me  like  a  captain  who  in  his  eagerness  to  astonish  his 
opponents  takes  on  board  guns  much  too  heavy  for  his  own 
safety. 

§  5.  "  All  human  beings  are  equally  capable  of  learning^'* 
said  Jacotot. 

The  truth  which  Jacotot  chose  to  throw  into  this  more  than 
doubtful  form,  may  perhaps  be  expressed  by  saying  that  the 
student's  power  of  learning  depends,  in  a  great  measure,  on 
his  will,  and  that  where  there  is  no  will  there  is  no  capacity. 


JACOTOT.  417 

2.  Everyone  can  teach. 

§  6.  "  Everyone  can  teach  ;  and,  moreover,  can  teach  that 
which  he  does  not  k?toii)  himself." 

•  Ixt  us  ask  ourselves  what  is  the  meaning  of  this.  First 
of  all,  we  have  to  get  rid  of  some  ambiguity  in  the  meaning 
of  the  word  teach.  To  teach,  according  to  Jacotot's  idea,  is 
to  cause  to  learn.  Teaching  and  learning  are  therefore 
correlatives :  where  there  is  no  learning  there  can  be  no 
teaching.  But  this  meaning  of  the  word  only  coincides 
partially  with  the  ordinary  meaning.  We  speak  of  the 
lecturer  or  preacher  as  teaching  when  he  gives  his  hearers 
an  opportunity  of  learning,  and  do  not  say  that  his  teaching 
ceases  the  instant  they  cease  to  attend.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  do  not  call  a  parent  a  teacher  because  he  sends  his  boy 
to  school,  and  so  causes  him  to  learn.  The  notion  of  teach- 
ing, then,  in  the  minds  of  most  of  us,  includes  giving 
information,  or  showing  how  an  art  is  to  be  performed,  and 
we  look  upon  Jacotot's  assertion  as  absurd,  because  we  feel 
that  no  one  can  give  information  which  he  does  not  possess, 
or  show  how  anything  is  to  be  done  if  he  does  not  himself 
know.  But  let  us  take  the  Jacototian  definition  of  teaching 
— causing  to  learn — and  then  see  how  far  a  person  can 
cause  another  to  learn  that  of  which  he  himself  is  ignorant 

§  7.  Subjects  which  are  taught  may  be  divided  into 
three  great  classes  : — i.  Facts ;  2,  reasonings,  or  generalisa- 
tion from  facts,  i.e.,  science ;  3,  actions  which  have  to  be 
performed  by  the  learner,  i.e.,  arts. 

I.  We  learn  some  facts  by  "  intuition,"  /.tf.,  by  direct 
experience.  It  may  be  as  well  to  make  the  number  of  them 
as  large  as  possible.  No  doubt  there  are  no  facts  which  arc 
kno-ivn  so  perfectly  as  these.  For  instance,  a  boy  who  has 
tried  to  smoke  knows  the  fact  that  tobacco  is  apt  to  pro- 
duce nausea  much  belter  than  another  who  has  picked  up 


41 8  JACOTOT. 

Can  he  teach  facts  he  does  not  know  ? 

the  information  second-hand.  An  intelligent  master  may 
suggest  experiments,  even  in  matters  about  which  he  himself 
is  ignorant,  and  thus,  in  Jacotot's  sense,  he  teaches  things 
which  he  does  not  know.  But  some  facts  cannot  be  learnt 
in  this  way,  and  then  a  Newton  is  helpless  either  to  find 
them  out  for  himself,  or  to  teach  them  to  others  without 
knowing  them.  If  the  teacher  does  not  know  in  what 
county  Tavistock  is,  he  can  only  learn  from  those  who  do, 
and  the  pupils  will  be  no  cleverer  than  their  master.  Here, 
then,  I  consider  that  Jacotot's  pretensions  utterly  break 
down.  "  No,"  the  answer  is ;  "  the  teacher  may  give  his 
pupil  an  atlas,  and  direct  the  boy  to  find  out  for  himself: 
thus  the  master  will  teach  what  he  does  not  know."  But, 
in  this  case,  he  is  a  teacher  only  so  far  as  he  knows.  For 
what  he  does  not  know,  he  hands  over  the  pupil  to  the 
maker  of  the  map,  who  communicates  with  him,  not  orally, 
but  by  ink  and  paper.  The  master's  ignorance  is  simply  an 
obstacle  to  the  boy's  learning ;  for  the  boy  would  learn 
sooner  the  position  of  Tavistock  if  it  were  shown  him  on 
the  map.  "That's  the  very  point,"  says  the  disciple  of 
Jacotot.  "If  the  boy  gets  the  knowledge  without  any 
trouble,  he  is  likely  to  forget  it  again  directly.  'Lightly 
come,  lightly  go.'  Moreover,  his  faculty  of  observation  will 
not  have  been  exercised."  It  is  indeed  well  not  to  allow 
the  knowledge  even  of  facts  to  come  too  easily  ;  though  the 
difficulties  which  arise  from  the  master's  ignorance  will 
not  be  found  the  most  advantageous.  Still  there  is  obviously 
a  limit.  If  we  gave  boys  their  lessons  in  cipher,  and 
offered  a  prize  to  the  first  decipherer,  one  would  probably 
be  found  at  last,  and  meantime  all  the  boys'  powers  of 
observation,  &c.,  would  have  been  cultivated  by  comparing 
like  signs  in  different  positions,  and  guessing  at  their  mean- 


J  AGO  TOT.  419 

Languages  ?    Sciences  ? 

ing ;  but  the  boys'  time  might  have  been  better  employed. 
Jacotot's  plan  of  teaching  a  language  which  the  master  did 
not  know,  was  to  put  a  book  with,  say,  "  Arma  virumque 
cano,"  &c.,  on  one  side,  and  "  I  sing  arms  and  the  man,  &c." 
on  the  other,  and  to  require  the  pupil  to  puzzle  over  it  till 
he  found  out  which  word  answered  to  which.  In  this  case 
the  teacher  was  the  translator ;  and  though  from  the  round- 
about way  in  which  the  knowledge  was  communicated  the 
pupil  derived  some  benefit,  the  benefit  was  hardly  sufficient 
to  make  up  for  the  expenditure  of  time  involved. 

Jacotot,  then,  did  not  teach  facts  of  which  he  was  igno- 
rant, except  in  the  sense  in  which  the  parent  who  sends  his 
boy  to  school  may  be  said  to  teach  him.  All  Jacotot  did 
was  to  direct  the  pupil  to  learn,  sometimes  in  a  very 
awkward  fashion,  from  somebody  else.* 

§  8.  2.  When  we  come  to  science,  we  find  all  the  best 
authorities  agree  that  the  pupil  should  be  led  to  principles 
if  possible,  and  not  have  the  principles  brought  to  him. 
Men  like  Tyndall,  Huxley,  H.  Spencer,  J.  M.  Wilson  have 
spoken  eloquently  on  this  subject,  and  shown  how  valuable 
scientific  teaching  is,  when  thus  conducted,  in  drawing  out 
the  faculties  of  the  mind.  But  although  a  schoolboy  may 
be  led  to  great  scientific  discoveries  by  anyone  who  knows 
the  road,  he  will  have  no  more  chance  of  making  them  with 
an  ignorant  teacher  than  he  would  have  had  in  the  days  of 
the  Ptolemies.  Here  again,  then,  I  cannot  understand  how 
the  teacher  can  teach  what  he  does  not  know.  He  may, 
indeed,  join  his  pupil  in  investigating  principles,  but  he 


*  Here  Jacotot's  notion  of  teaching  reminds  one  of  the  sophism 
quoted  by  Montaigne — "A  Westphalia  ham  makes  a  man  drink.  Drink 
qiiciiclies  thirst.     Therefore  a  Westphalia  ham  quenches  thirst." 


420  JACOTOT. 

Arts  such  as  drawing  and  music  ? 

must  either  keep  with  the  pupil  or  go  in  advance  of  him. 
In  the  first  case  he  is  only  a  fellow-pupil ;  in  the  second,  he 
teaches  only  that  which  he  knows. 

§  9.  Finally,  we  come  to  arts,  and  we  are  told  that 
Jacotot  taught  drawing  and  music,  without  being  either  a 
draughtsman  or  a  musician.  In  art  everything  depends  on 
rightly  directed  practice.  The  most  consummate  artist 
cannot  communicate  his  skill,  and,  except  for  inspiration 
may  be  inferior  as  a  teacher  to  one  whose  attention  is  more 
concentrated  on  the  mechanism  of  the  art.  Perhaps  it  is 
not  even  necessary  that  the  teacher  should  be  able  to  do  the 
exercises  himself,  if  only  he  knows  how  they  should  be  done ; 
but  he  seldom  gets  credit  for  this  knowledge,  unless  he  can 
show  that  he  knows  how  the  thing  should  be  done,  by 
doing  it.  Lessing  tells  us  that  Raphael  would  have  been  a 
great  painter  even  if  he  had  been  born  without  hands.  He 
would  not,  however,  have  succeeded  in  getting  mankind  to 
believe  it.  I  grant,  then,  that  the  teacher  of  art  need  not  be 
a  first-rate  artist,  and,  in  some  very  exceptional  cases,  need 
not  be  an  artist  at  all ;  but,  if  he  cannot  perform  the  exer- 
cises he  gives  his  pupil,  he  must  at  least  know  how  they 
should  be  done.  But  Jacotot  claims  perfect  ignorance.  We 
are  told  that  he  "taught"  drawing  by  setting  objects  before 
his  pupils,  and  making  them  imitate  them  on  paper  as  best 
they  could.  Of  course  the  art  originated  in  this  way,  and  a 
person  with  great  perseverance,  and  (I  must  say,  in  spite  of 
Jacotot)  with  more  than  average  ability,  would  make  con- 
siderable progress  with  no  proper  instruction  ;  but  he  would 
lose  much  by  the  ignorance  of  the  person  calling  himself  his 
teacher.  An  awkward  habit  of  holding  the  pencil  will  make 
skill  doubly  difficult  to  acquire,  and  thus  half  his  time  might 
be  wasted.     Then,  again,  he  would  hardly  have  a  better  eye 


JACOTOT.  421 

True  teacher  within  the  learner. 

than  the  early  painters,  so  the  drawing  of  his  landscape 
would  not  be  less  faulty  than  theirs.  To  consider  music 
I  am  told  that  a  person  who  is  ignorant  of  music  can  teach, 
say,  the  piano  or  the  violin.  This  seems  to  go  beyond  the 
region  of  paradox  into  that  of  utter  nonsense.  Talent  often 
surmounts  all  kinds  of  difficulties ;  but  in  the  case  of  selt 
taught,  and  ill-taught  musicians,  it  is  often  painful  to  see 
what  time  and  talent  have  been  wasted  for  want  of  proper 
instruction. 

I  have  thus  carefully  examined  Jacotot's  pretensions  to 
teach  what  he  did  not  know,  because  I  am  anxious  that 
what  seems  to  me  the  rubbish  should  be  cleared  away  from 
his  principles,  and  should  no  longer  conceal  those  parts  of 
his  system  which  are  worthy  of  general  attention. 

§10.  At  the  root  of  Jacotot's  paradox  lay  a  truth  of  very 
great  importance.  The  highest  and  best  teaching  is  not  that 
which  makes  the  pupils  passive  recipients  of  other  peoples* 
ideas  (not  to  speak  of  the  teaching  which  conveys  mere 
words  without  any  ideas  at  all),  but  that  which  guides  and 
encourages  the  pupils  in  working  for  themselves  and  think- 
ing for  themselves.  The  master,  as  Joseph  Payne  well  says, 
can  no  more  think,  or  practise,  or  see  for  his  pupil,  than  he 
can  digest  for  him,  or  walk  for  him.  The  pupil  must  owe 
everything  to  his  own  exertions,  which  it  is  the  function  of 
the  master  to  encourage  and  direct.  Perhaps  this  may  seem 
very  obvious  truth,  but  obvious  or  not  it  has  been  very 
generally  neglected.  The  old  system  of  lecturing  which 
found  favour  with  the  Jesuits,  has  indeed  now  passed  away, 
and  boys  are  left  to  acquire  facts  from  school-books  instead 
of  from  the  master.  But  this  change  is  merely  accidental. 
The  essence  of  the  teaching  still  remains.  Even  where  the 
master  aoes  not  confine  himself  to  hearing  what  the  scholars 


422  JACOTOT. 

Training  rather  than  teaching-. 

have  learnt  by  heart,  he  seldom  does  more  than  offer 
explanations.  He  measures  the  teaching  rather  by  the 
amount  which  has  been  put  before  the  scholars — by  what  he 
has  done  for  them  and  shown  them — than  by  what  they 
have  learned.  But  this  is  not  teaching  of  the  highest  type. 
When  the  votary  of  Dulness  in  the  "  Dunciad  "  is  rendering 
an  account  of  his  services,  he  arrives  at  this  climax, 

"  For  thee  explain  a  thing  till  all  men  doubt  it, 
"And  write  about  it,  Goddess,  and  about  it." 

And  in  the  same  spirit  Mr.  J.  M.  Wilson  stigmatises 
as  synonymous  "the  most  stupid  and  most  didactic 
teaching." 

§  II.  All  the  eminent  authorities  on  education  have  a 
very  different  theory  of  the  teacher's  function.  According 
to  them  the  master's  attention  is  not  to  be  fixed  on  his  own 
mind  and  his  own  store  of  knowledge,  but  on  his  pupil's 
mind  and  on  its  gradual  expansion.  He  must,  in  fact,  be 
not  so  much  a  teacher  as  a  trainer.  Here  we  have  the  view 
which  Jacotot  intended  to  enforce  by  his  paradox ;  for  we 
may  possibly  train  faculties  which  we  do  not  ourselves 
possess,  just  as  the  sportsman  trains  his  pointer  and  his 
hunter  to  perform  feats  which  are  altogether  out  of  the  range 
of  his  own  capacities.  Now,  "  training  is  the  cultivation 
bestowed  on  any  set  of  faculties  with  the  object  of  develop- 
ing them  "  (J.  M.  Wilson),  and  to  train  any  faculty,  you 
must  set  it  to  work.  Hence  it  follows,  that  as  boys'  minds 
are  not  simply  their  memories,  the  master  must  aim  at 
something  more  than  causing  his  pupils  to  remember  facts. 
Jacotot  has  done  good  service  to  education  by  giving  pro 
minence  to  this  truth,  and  by  showing  in  his  method  how 
other  faculties  may  be  cultivated  besides  the  memory. 


JACOTOT.  423 

3.  Tout  est  dans  tout.    Quidlibet  ex  quolibet. 

§  1 2.  "  Tout  est  dans  tout "  ( "  All  is  in  all "  ),  is  another  of 
Jacotot's  paradoxes.  I  do  not  propose  discussing  it  as  the 
philosophical  thesis  which  takes  other  forms,  as  "  Evei  y 
nun  is  a  microcosm,"  &c.,  but  merely  to  inquire  into  its 
meaning  as  applied  to  didactics. 

If  you  asked  an  ordinary  French  schoolmaster  who 
Jacotot  was,  he  would  probably  answer,  Jacotot  was  a  man 
who  thought  you  could  learn  everything  by  getting  up 
Fenelon's  "  Telemaque  "  by  heart.  By  carrying  your  investi- 
gation further,  you  would  find  that  this  account  of  him 
required  modification,  that  the  learning  by  heart  was  only 
part,  and  a  very  small  part,  of  what  Jacotot  demanded  from 
his  pupils,  but  you  would  also  find  that  entire  mastery  of 
"Telemaque"  was  the  first  requisite,  and  that  he  managed  to 
connect  everything  he  taught  with  that  "  model-book."  Of 
course,  if  "  tout  est  dans  tout,"  everything  is  in  "  Telemaque;" 
and,  said  an  objector,  also  in  the  first  book  of  "  Telemaque  " 
and  in  the  first  word.  Jacotot  went  through  a  variety  of 
subtilties  to  show  that  all  "  Telemaque  "  is  contained  in  the 
word  Calypso,  and  perhaps  he  would  have  been  equally 
successful,  if  he  had  been  required  to  take  only  the  first 
letter  instead  of  the  first  word.  His  maxim  indeed  becomes 
by  his  treatment  of  it  a  mere  paraphrase  of  "  Quidlibet  ex 
quolibet"  The  reader  is  amused  rather  than  convinced  by 
these  discussions,  but  he  finds  them  not  without  fruit. 
They  bring  to  his  mind  very  forcibly  a  truth  to  which  he 
has  hitherto  probably  not  paid  sufficient  attention.  He  sees 
that  all  knowledge  is  connected  together,  or  (what  will  do 
equally  well  for  our  present  purpose)  that  there  aie  a 
thousand  links  by  which  we  may  bring  into  connexion  the 
different  subjects  of  knowledge.  If  by  means  of  these  links 
we  can  attach  in  our  minds  the  knowledge  we  acquire  to 


i24  JACOTOT. 

Connexion  of  knowledges. 

the  knowledge  we  already  possess,  we  shall  learn  faster 
and  more  intelligently,  and  at  the  same  time  we  shall  have 
a  much  better  chance  of  retaining  our  new  acquisitions. 
The  memory,  as  we  all  know,  is  assisted  even  by  artificial 
association  of  ideas,  much  more  by  natural.  Hence  the 
value  of  "  tout  est  dans  tout,"  or,  to  adopt  a  modification 
suggested  by  Joseph  Payne,  of  the  connexion  of  knowledges. 
Suppose  we  know  only  one  subject,  but  know  that 
thoroughly,  our  knowledge,  if  I  may  express  myself 
algebraically,  cannot  be  represented  by  ignorance  plus  the 
knowledge  of  that  subject.  We  have  acquired  a  great  deal 
more  than  that.  When  other  subjects  come  before  us,  they 
may  prove  to  be  so  connected  with  what  we  had  before,  that 
we  may  also  seem  to  know  them  already.  In  other  words 
when  we  know  a  little  thoroughly,  though  our  actual 
possession  is  small,  we  have  potentially  a  great  deal  more.* 

§  13.  Jacotot's  practical  application  of  his  "tout  est  dans 
tout"  was  as  follows  : — '■''II  Jaut  apprendre  quel  que  chose,  ety 
rapporter  tout  le  rested  ("The  pupil  must  learn  something 
thoroughly,  and  refer  everything  to  that.")  For  language 
he  must  take  a  model  book,  and  become  thoroughly  master 
of  it.  His  knowledge  must  not  be  a  verbal  knowledge  only, 
but  he  must  enter  into  the  sense  and  spirit  of  the  writer. 
Here  we  find  that  Jacotot's  practical  advice  coincides  with 
that  of  many  other  great  authorities,  who  do  not  base  it  on 
the  same  principle.  The  Jesuits'  maxim  was,  that  their 
pupils  should  always  learn  something  thoroughly,  however 

*  See  H.  Courthope  Bowen  on  "Connectedness  in  Teaching" 
(Educational  Times,  June,  1890).  Mr.  Bowen  quotes  from  H.  Spencer 
— "  Knowledge  of  the  lowest  kind  is  ««-«^«z/5>fl^  knowledge  :  science  is 
partially  unified  knowledge  :  philosophy  is  completely  unified  know- 
ledge." 


JACOTOT.  425 

Connect  with  model  book.    Memorizing. 

little  n  might  be.  Pestalozzi  insisted  on  the  children  going 
over  the  elements  again  and  again  till  they  were  completely 
master  of  them.  Ascham,  Ratke,  and  Comenius  all  required 
a  model-book  to  be  read  and  re-read  till  words  and  thoughts 
were  firmly  fixed  in  the  pupil's  memory.  Jacotot  probably 
never  read  Ascham's  "  Schoolmaster."  If  he  had  done  so 
he  might  have  appropriated  some  of  Ascham's  words  as 
exactly  conveying  his  own  thoughts.  Ascham,  as  we  saw, 
recommended  that  a  short  book  should  be  thoroughly 
mastered,  each  lesson  being  worked  over  in  different  ways  a 
dozen  times  at  the  least,  and  in  this  way  "  your  scholar  shall 
be  brought  not  only  to  like  eloquence,  but  also  to  all  true 
understanding  and  right  judgment,  both  for  writing  and 
speaking."  In  this  the  Englishman  and  the  Frenchman  are 
in  perfect  accord. 

§  14.  But  if  Jacotot  agrees  so  far  with  earlier  authorities, 
there  is  one  point  in  which  he  seems  to  differ  from  them. 
He  makes  great  demands  on  the  memory,  and  requires  six 
books  of  "  Telemaque  "  to  be  learned  by  heart.  On  the 
other  hand,  Montaigne,  Locke,  Rousseau,  H.  Spencer,  and 
other  great  writers  would  be  opposed  to  this.  Ratke 
insisted  that  nothing  should  be  learnt  by  heart.  Protests 
against  "  loading  the  memory,"  "  saying  without  book,"  &c., 
are  everywhere  to  be  met  with,  and  nowhere  more  vigorously 
expressed  than  in  Ascham.  He  says  of  the  grammar-school 
boys  of  his  time,  that  "  their  whole  knowledge,  by  learning 
without  the  book,  was  tied  only  to  their  tongue  and  lips, 
and  never  ascended  up  to  the  brain  and  head,  and  therefore 
was  soon  spit  out  of  the  mouth  again.  They  learnt  with- 
out book  everything,  they  understood  within  the  book 
little  or  nothing."  But  these  protests  were  really  directed 
at  verbal  knowledge,  when  it  is  made  to  take  the  place  of 


426  JACOTOT. 

Ways  of  studying  the  model  book. 

knowledge  of  the  thing  signified.  We  are  always  too  ready 
to  suppose  that  words  are  connected  with  ideas,  though  both 
old  and  young  are  constantly  exposing  themselves  to  the 
sarcasm  of  Mephistophelcs : — 

.  .  .  eben  wo  Begriffe  fehlen, 

Da  stellt  ein  Wort  zur  rechten  Zeit  sich  ein. 

.  .  .  just  where  meaning  fails,  a  word 
Comes  patly  in  to  serve  your  turn. 

Against  this  danger  Jacotot  took  special  precautions. 
The  pupil  was  to  undergo  an  examination  in  everything 
connected  with  the  lesson  learnt,  and  the  master's  share  in 
the  work  was  to  convince  himself,  from  the  answers  he 
received,  that  the  pupil  thoroughly  grasped  the  meaning,  as 
well  as  remembered  the  words,  of  the  author.  Still  the  six 
books  of  "  Tel^maque,"  which  Jacotot  gave  to  be  learnt  by 
heart,  was  a  very  large  dose,  and  he  would  have  been  more 
faithful  to  his  own  principles,  says  Joseph  Payne,  if  he  had 
given  the  first  book  only. 

§  15.  There  are  three  ways  in  which  the  model-book 
may  be  studied.  ist,  it  may  be  read  through  rapidly 
again  and  again,  which  was  Ratke's  plan  and  Hamilton's ; 
or,  2nd,  each  lesson  may  be  thoroughly  mastered,  read  in 
various  ways  a  dozen  times  at  the  least,  which  was  Ascham's 
plan  ;  or,  3rd,  the  pupil  may  begin  always  at  the  beginning, 
and  advance  a  little  further  each  time,  which  was  Jacotol's 
plan.*     This  last,  could  not,  of  course,  be  carried  very  far, 

*  As  I  have  said  above  (p.  89)  these  methodizers  in  language-learning 
may,  with  regard  to  the  first  stage,  be  divided  into  two  parties  which 
I  liave  called  Cotiiplete  Retainers  and  Rapid  Impressionists.  Two  Com- 
plete Retainers,  Robertson  and  Prendergast,  have,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
maf'e,  since  Jacotot,  a  great  advance  on  his  method  and  that  of  hi* 


JACOTOT. 427 

Should  the  book  be  made  or  chosen  ? 

The  repetitions,  when  the  pupil  had  got  on  some  way  in 
the  book,  could  not  always  be  from  the  beginning;  still 

prclecessor  Ascham.  As  I  have  had  a  good  deal  of  experience  with 
beg.nners  in  German,  I  will  give  from  an  old  lecture  of  mine  the  main 
conclusions  at  which  I  have  arrived : — "My  principle  is  to  attack  the  most 
vital  part  of  the  language,  and  at  first  to  keep  the  area  small,  or  rather  to 
enlarge  it  very  slowly ;  but  within  that  area  I  want  to  get  as  much  variety 
as  possible.  The  study  of  a  book  written  in  the  language  should  be 
carried  on  pari  passu  with  drill  in  its  common  inflexions.  Now  arises 
the  question.  Should  the  book  be  made  with  the  object  of  teaching  the 
language,  or  should  it  be  selected  from  those  written  for  other  purposes? 
I  see  much  to  be  said  on  either  side.  The  three  great  facts  we  have  to 
turn  to  account  in  teaching  a  language,  are  these : — first,  a  few  words 
recur  so  constantly  that  a  knowledge  of  them  and  grasp  of  them  gives 
us  a  power  in  the  language  quite  out  of  proportion  to  their  number ; 
second,  large  classes  of  words  admit  of  many  variations  of  meaning  by 
inflection,  which  variations  we  can  understand  from  analogy ;  third, 
compound  words  are  formed  ad  infinitum  on  simple  laws,  so  that  the 
root  woi-d  supplies  the  key  to  a  whole  family.  Now,  if  the  book  is 
written  by  the  language-teacher,  he  has  the  whole  language  before  him, 
and  he  can  make  the  most  of  all  these  advantages.  He  can  use  only 
the  important  words  of  the  language ;  he  can  repeal  them  in  various 
connections  ;  he  can  bring  the  main  facts  of  inflection  and  construction 
before  the  learner  in  a  regular  order,  which  is  a  great  assistance  to  the 
memory  ;  he  can  give  the  simple  words  before  introducing  words  com- 
pounded of  them  ;  and  he  can  provide  that,  when  a  word  occurs  for  tne 
first  time,  the  learners  shall  connect  it  with  its  root  meaning.  A  short 
book  securing  all  these  advantages  would,  no  doubt,  be  a  very  useful 
implement,  but  I  have  never  seen  such  a  book.  Almost  all  delectuses, 
&c.,  bury  the  learner  with  a  pile  of  new  words,  under  which  he  feels 
himself  powerless.  So  far  as  I  know,  the  book  has  yet  to  be  written. 
And  even  if  it  were  written,  with  the  greatest  success  from  a  linguistic 
point  of  view,  it  would  of  course  make  no  pretension  to  a  meaning. 
Having  myself  gone  through  a  course  of  Ahn  and  of  Ollendorf,  I  re- 
member, as  a  sort  of  nightmare,  innumerable  questions  and  answers, 
such  as  "Have  you  my  thread  stockings?  No,  I  ha'^'e  your  worsted 
Bteckings."     Still  more  repulsive  are  the  long  sentences  of  Mr.  Prender* 


428  JACOTOT. 

Robertsonian  plan. 

every  part  was  to  be  repeated  so  frequently  that  nothing 
could  be  forgotten.     Jacotot  did  not  wish  his  pupils  to  learn 

gast : — "  IIow  much  must  I  give  to  the  cabdriver  to  take  my  father  lo 
the  Bank  in  New  Street  before  his  second  breakfast,  and  to  bring  him 
home  again  before  half-past  two  o'clock?"  I  cannot  forget  Voltaire's 
mot,  which  has  a  good  deal  of  truth  in  it, — "  Every  way  is  good  but  the 
tiresome  way."  And  most  of  the  books  written  for  beginners  are  inex- 
pressibly tiresome.  No  doubt  it  will  be  said,  "Unless  you  adopt  the 
rapid-impressionist  plan,  any  book  must  be  tiresome.  What  is  a  mean- 
ing at  first  becomes  no  meaning  by  frequent  repetition."  This,  ho\vever, 
is  not  altogether  true.  I  myself  have  taught  Niebuhr's  Heroengeschichten 
for  years,  and  I  know  some  chapters  by  heart ;  but  the  old  tales  of 
Jason  and  Hercules  as  they  are  told  in  Niebuhr's  simple  language  do 
not  bore  me  in  the  least, 

"  Ein  Begriflf  muss  bei  dem  Worte  sein," 
says  the  Student  in  Faust ;  and  a  notion — a  very  pleasing  notion,  too— 
remains  to  me  about  every  word  in  the  Heroengeschichten. 

These,  then,  would  be  my  books  to  be  worked  at  the  Eame  time  by  a 
beginner,  say  in  German  : — A  book  for  drill  in  the  principal  inflexions, 
followed  by  the  main  facts  about  gender,  &c.,  and  a  book  like  the 
Heroengeschichten.  This  I  would  have  prepared  very  much  after  the 
Robertsonian  manner.  It  should  be  printed,  as  should  also  the  Primer, 
in  good-sized  Roman  type ;  though,  in  an  appendix,  some  of  it  should 
be  reprinted  in  German  type.  The  book  should  be  divided  into  short 
lessons.  A  translaiion  of  each  lesson  should  be  given  in  parallel  columns. 
Then  should  come  a  vocabulary,  in  which  all  useful  information  should 
be  given  about  the  really  important  words,  the  tinimportant  xvords  being 
neglected.  Finally  should  come  variations,  and  exercises  in  the  lessons  ; 
and  in  these  the  important  words  of  that  and  previous  lessons  should  be 
used  exclusively.  The  exercises  should  be  such  as  the  pupils  could  do 
in  writing  out  of  school,  and  vivd  voce  in  school.  They  should  be  very 
easy — real  exercises  in  what  is  already  known,  not  a  series  of  linguistic 
puzzles.  The  object  of  the  exercises,  and  also  ol  a  vast  number  of  vivd 
voce  questions,  should  be  to  accustom  the  pupil  to  use  his  knowledge 
readily.  (But  some  teachers,  young  teachers  especially,  are  always 
f;wj  examining,  and  seem  to  themselves  to  fail  when  their  questions  are 


JACOTOT.  429 

Hints  for  exercises. 

simply  in  order  to  forget,  but  to  learn  in  order  to  remember 
for  ever.     "We  are  learned,"  said  he,  "not  so  far  as  we 


answered  without  difficulty.)  The  ear,  the  voice,  the  hand,  should  ail 
be  practised  on  each  lesson.  When  the  construing  is  known,  transcrip- 
tion of  the  German  is  not  by  any  means  to  be  despised.  A  good 
variety  of  transcription  is,  for  the  teacher  to  write  the  German  clause  by 
clause  on  the  black-board,  and  rub  out  each  clause  before  the  pupils 
begin  to  write  it.  Then  a  known  piece  may  be  prepared  for  dictation. 
In  reading  this  as  dictation,  the  master  may  introduce  small  variations, 
to  teach  his  pupils  to  keep  their  ears  open.  He  may,  as  another  exer- 
cise, read  the  German  aloud,  and  stop  here  and  there  for  the  boys  to 
give  the  English  of  the  last  sentence  read ;  or  he  may  read  to  them 
either  the  exact  German  in  the  book  or  small  variations  on  it,  and  make 
the  pupils  translate  vivA  voce,  clause  by  clause.  He  may  then  ask 
questions  on  the  piece  in  German  and  require  answers  in  English. 

For  exercises,  there  are  many  devices  by  which  the  pupil  may  be 
trained  to  observation,  and  also  be  confirmed  in  his  knowledge  of  back 
lessons.  The  great  teacher,  F.  A.  Wolf,  used  to  make  his  own  children 
ascertain  how  many  times  such  and  such  a  word  occurred  in  such  and. 
such  pages.  As  M.  Breal  says,  children  are  collectors  by  nature  ;  and, 
acting  on  this  hint,  we  might  say,  "  Write  in  column  all  the  dative  cases 
on  pages  a  to  c,  and  give  the  English  and  the  corresponding  nomina- 
tives." Or,  "  Copy  from  those  pages  all  the  accusative  prepositions 
with  the  accusatives  after  them."  Or,  "  Write  out  the  past  participles, 
with  their  infinitives."  Or,  "Translate  such  and  such  sentences,  and 
explain  them  with  reference  to  the  context."  Or,  questions  may  be 
asked  on  the  subject-matter  of  the  book.  There  is  no  end  to  the 
possible  varieties  of  such  exercises. 

As  soon  as  they  get  any  feeling  of  the  language,  the  pupils  should 
learn  by  heart  some  easy  poetry  in  it.  I  should  recommend  their  learn- 
ing the  English  of  the  piece  first,  and  then  getting  the  German  viv&  voce 
from  the  teacher.  To  quicken  the  German  in  their  minds,  I  think  it  is 
well  to  give  them  in  addition  a  German  prose  version,  using  almost  the 
same  words.  Variations  of  the  more  important  sentences  should  be 
learnt  at  the  same  time. 

In  all  these  suggestions  you  will  see  what  I  am  aiming  at.     I  wish 

30 


430  JACOTOT. 

The  good  of  having  learnt. 

have  learned,  but  only  so  far  as  we  remember."  He  seems, 
indeed,  almost  to  ignore  the  fact  that  the  act  of  learning 
serves  other  purposes ,  than  that  of  making  learned,  and  to 
assert  that  to  forget  is  the  same  as  never  to  have  learned, 
which  is  a  palpable  error.  We  necessarily  forget  much 
that  passes  through  our  minds,  and  yet  its  effect  remains. 
All  grown  people  have  arrived  at  some  opinions,  convictions, 
knowledge,  but  they  cannot  call  to  mind  every  spot  they 
trod  on  in  the  road  thither.  When  we  have  read  a  great 
history,  say,  or  travelled  through  a  fresh  country,  we  have 
gained  more  than  the  number  of  facts  we  happen  to  re- 
member. The  mind  seems  to  have  formed  an  acquaintance 
with  that  history  or  that  country,  which  is  something  different 
from  the  mere  acquisition  of  facts.  Moreover,  our  interests, 
as  well  as  our  ideas,  may  long  survive  the  memory  of  the 
facts  which  originally  started  them.  ^Ve  are  told  that  one 
of  the  old  judges,  when  a  barrister  objected  to  some  dictum 
of  his,  put  him  down  by  the  assertion,  "  Sir,  I  have  for- 
gotten more  law  than  ever  you  read."  If  he  wished  to 
make  the  amount  forgotten  a  measure  of  the  amount  re- 
membered, this  was  certainly  fallacious,  as  the  ratio  between 
the  two  is  not  a  constant  quantity.  But  he  may  have  meant 
that  this  extensive  reading  had  left  its  result,  and  that  he 
could  see  things  from  more  points  of  view  than  the  less 
travelled  legal  vision  of  his  opponent.  That  power  acquired 
by  learning  may  also  last  longer  than  the  knowledge  of 
the  thing  learned  is  sufficiently  obvious.  So  the  advantages 
derived  from  having  learnt  a  thing  are  not  entirely  lost 
when  the  thing  itself  is  forgotten.* 

the  learner  to  get  a  feeling  of,  and  a  power  over,  the  main  words  of  the 
language  and  the  machinery  in  which  they  are  employed. 

•  I  append  in  a  note  a  passage  from  the  old  edition  of  this  book  re- 


JACOTOT.  431 

The  old  Cambridge  "  mathematical  man." 

§  16.  But  the  reflection  by  no  means  justifies  the  dis- 
graceful waste  of  memory  which  goes  on  in  most  school  • 


fcrring  to  the  Cambridge  man  of  forty  years  ago.  "The  typical 
Cambridge  man  studies  mathematics,  not  because  he  likes  mathematics, 
or  derives  any  pleasure  from  the  perception  of  mathematical  truth,  still 
less  with  the  notion  of  ever  using  his  knowledge  ;  but  either  because,  if 
he  is  "a  good  man,"  he  hopes  for  a  fellowship,  or  because,  if  he  cannot 
aspire  so  high,  he  considers  reading  the  thing  to  do,  and  finds  a  satis- 
faction in  mental  effort  just  as  he  does  in  a  constitutional  to  the 
Gogmagogs.  When  such  a  student  takes  his  degree,  he  is  by  no  means 
a  highly  cultivated  man ;  but  he  is  not  the  sort  of  man  we  can  despise 
for  all  that.  He  has  in  him,  to  use  one  of  his  own  metaphors,  a  con- 
siderable amount  oi  force ^  which  may  be  applied  in  any  direction.  He 
has  great  power  of  concentration  and  sustained  mental  effort  even  on 
subjects  which  are  distasteful  to  him.  In  other  words,  his  mind  is 
under  the  control  of  his  will,  and  he  can  bring  it  to  bear  promptly  and 
vigorously  on  anything  put  before  him.  He  will  sometimes  be  half 
through  a  piece  of  work,  while  an  average  Oxonian  (as  we  Cambridge 
men  conceive  of  him  at  least)  is  thinking  about  beginning.  But  his 
training  has  taught  him  to  value  mental  force  without  teaching  him  to 
care  about  its  application.  Perhaps  he  has  been  working  at  the  gym- 
nasium, and  has  at  length  succeeded  in  "  putting  up  "  a  hundredweight. 
In  learning  to  do  this,  he  has  been  acquiring  strength  for  its  ovra  sake. 
He  does  not  want  to  put  up  hundredweights,  but  simply  to  be  able  to 
put  them  up,  and  his  reward  is  the  consciousness  of  power.  Now  the 
tripos  is  a  kind  of  competitive  examination  in  putting  up  weights.  The 
student  who  has  been  training  for  it,  has  acquired  considerable  mental 
vigour,  and  when  he  has  put  up  his  weight  he  falls  back  on  the  con- 
sciousness of  strength  which  he  seldom  thinks  of  using.  Having  put  up 
the  heavier,  he  despises  the  lighter  weights.  He  rather  prides  himself 
on  his  ignorance  of  such  things  as  history,  modern  languages,  and 
English  literature.  He  "  can  get  those  up  in  a  few  evenings,"  whenever 
he  wants  them.  He  reminds  me,  indeed,  of  a  tradesman  who  has 
worked  hard  to  have  a  large  balance  at  his  banker's.  This  done,  he  is 
satisfied.  He  has  neither  taste  nor  desire  for  the  things  which  make 
vealth  valuable ;  but  when  he  sees  other  people  in  the  enjoyment  of 


432  JACOTOr. 

Waste  of  memory  at  school. 

rooms.  Much  is  learnt  which,  for  want  of  the  necessary 
repetition,  will  soon  be  lost  again,  besides  much  that  would 
be  valueless  if  remembered.  The  thing  to  aim  at  is  no! 
giving  "useful  knowledge,"  but  making  the  memory  a  stc)r& 
house  of  such  facts  as  are  good  material  for  the  other  powers 
of  the  mind  to  work  with  ;  and  that  the  facts  may  serve  this 
purpose  they  must  be  such  as  the  mind  can  thoroughly 
grasp  and  handle,  and  such  as  can  be  connected  together. 
To  instruct  is  insiruere,  "  to  put  together  in  order,  to  build ;" 
it  is  not  cramming  the  memory  with  facts  without  con- 
nexion, and,  as  Herbert  Spencer  calls  them,  unorganisable. 
And  yet  a  great  deal  of  our  children's  memory  is  wasted  in 
storing  facts  of  this  kind,  which  can  never  form  part  of  any 
organism.  We  do  not  teach  them  geography  {earth  know- 
ledge^ as  the  Germans  call  it),  but  the  names  of  places.  Our 
"history"  is  a  similar,  though  disconnected  study.  We 
leave  our  children  ignorant  of  the  land,  but  insist  on  their 
getting  up  the  "  landmarks."  And,  perhaps,  from  a  latent 
perception  of  the  uselessness  of  such  work,  neither  teachers 
nor  scholars  ever  think  of  these  things  as  learnt  to  be  re- 
membered. They  are  indeed  got  up,  as  Schuppius  says  of 
the  Logic  of  his  day,  in  spent  futurce  oblivionis.  Latin 
grammar  is  gone  through  again  and  again,  and  a  boy  feels 
that  the  sooner  he  gets  it  into  his  head,  the  better  it  will 
be  for  him  ;  but  who  expects  that  the  lists  of  geographical 
and  historical  names  which  are  learnt  one  half-year,  will  be 
remembered  the  next  ?  I  have  seen  it  asserted,  that  when 
a  boy  leaves  school,  he  has  already  forgotten  nine-tenths  of 
what  he  has  been  taught,  and  I  dare  say  that  estimate  is 
quite  within  the  mark. 

them,  he  hugs  himself  with  the  consciousness  that  he  can  write  a  cheque 
for  such  things  whenever  he  pleases." 


JACOTOT. ■        433 

How  to  stop  this  waste. 

§  17.  By  adopting  the  principles  of  Jacotot,  we  avoid 
a  great  deal  of  this  waste.  We  give  some  thorough  know- 
ledge, with  which  fresh  knowledge  may  be  connected.  And 
it  will  then  be  found  that  perfect  familiarity  with  a  subject 
is  something  beyond  the  mere  understanding  it  and  being 
able,  with  difficulty,  to  reproduce  what  we  have  learned. 
By  thus  going  over  the  same  thing  again  and  again,  we 
acquire  a  thorough  command  over  our  knowledge  ;  and  the 
feeling  perfectly  at  home,  even  within  narrow  borders,  gives 
a  consciousness  of  strength.  An  old  adage  tells  us  that 
the  Jack-of-all-trades  is  master  of  none ;  but  the  master  of 
one  trade  will  have  no  difficulty  in  extending  his  insight 
and  capacity  beyond  it.  To  use  an  illustration,  which  is 
of  course  an  illustration  merely,  we  should  kindle  knowledge 
in  children,  like  fire  in  a  grate.  A  stupid  servant,  with  a 
small  quantity  of  wood,  spreads  it  over  the  whole  grate.  It 
blazes  away,  goes  out,  and  is  simply  wasted.  Another,  who 
is  wiser  or  more  experienced,  kindles  the  whole  of  the  wood 
at  one  spot,  and  the  fire,  thus  concentrated,  extends  in  all 
directions.  Similarly  we  should  concentrate  the  beginnings 
of  knowledge,  and  although  we  could  not  expect  to  make 
much  show  for  a  time,  we  might  be  sure  that  after  a  bit  the 
fire  would  extend,  almost  of  its  own  accord.* 

§  18.  From  Joseph  Payne  I  take  Jacotot's  directions  for 
carrying  out  the  rule,  "  II  faut  apprendre  quelque  chose,  et 
y  rapporter  tout  le  reste." 

•  On  this  interesting  subject  I  will  quote  three  men  who  said  nothing 
inepte—'DQ  Morgan,  Helps,  and  the  first  Sir  James  Stephen.  De 
Morgan,  speaking  of  Jacotot's  plan,  wrote  : — "  There  is  much  truth  in  the 
assertion  that  new  knowledge  hooks  on  easily  to  a  little  of  the  old 
thoroughly  mastered.  The  day  is  coming  when  it  will  be  found  out 
that  crammed  erudition  got  up  for  examination,  does  not  cast  out  aay 


434  JACOTOT. 

Multum,  non  multa.   De  Morgan.  Helps.  Stephen. 

I.  Learn — i.e.,  learn  so  as  to  know  thoroughly,  perfectly, 
immovably  {imperturbablement\  as  well  six  months  or  twelve 

hooks  for  more."  {Budget  of  Paradoxes,  p.  3.)  Elsewhere  hesajrs:— 
"  When  the  student  has  occupied  his  time  in  learning  a  moderate  portion 
of  many  different  things,  what  has  he  acquired — extensive  knowledge  or 
useful  habits  ?  Even  if  he  can  be  said  to  have  varied  learning,  it  will 
not  long  be  true  of  him,  for  nothing  flies  so  quickly  as  half-digested 
knowledge ;  and  when  this  is  gone,  there  remains  but  a  slender  portion 
of  useful  power.  A  small  quantity  of  learning  quickly  evaporates  from 
a  mind  which  never  held  any  learning  except  in  small  quantities ;  and 
the  intellectual  philosopher  can  perhaps  explain  the  following  phenom- 
enon— that  men  who  have  given  deep  attention  to  one  or  more  liberal 
studies,  can  learn  to  the  end  of  their  lives,  and  are  able  to  retain  and 
apply  very  small  quantities  of  other  kinds  of  knowledge ;  while  those 
who  have  never  learnt  much  of  any  one  thing  seldom  acquire  new 
knowledge  after  they  attain  to  years  of  maturity,  and  frequently  lose  the 
greater  part  of  that  which  they  once  possessed." 

Sir  Arthur  Helps  in  Reading  {Friends  in  C.)  says  : — "All  things  are 
so  connected  together  that  a  man  who  knows  one  subject  well,  cannot, 
if  he  would,  have  failed  to  have  acquired  much  besides  ;  and  that  man 
will  not  be  likely  to  keep  fewer  pearls  who  has  a  string  to  put  them  on 
than  he  who  picks  them  up  and  throws  them  together  without  method. 
This,  however,  is  a  very  poor  metaphor  to  represent  the  matter ;  for 
what  I  would  aim  at  producing  not  merely  holds  together  what  is 
gained,  but  has  vitality  in  itself — is  always  growing.  And  anybody 
will  confirm  this  who  in  his  own  case  has  had  any  branch  of  study  or 
human  affairs  to  work  upon ;  for  he  must  have  observed  how  all  he 
meets  seems  to  work  in  with,  and  assimilate  itself  to,  his  own  peculiar 
subject.  During  his  lonely  walks,  or  in  society,  or  in  action,  it  seems 
as  if  this  one  pursuit  were  something  almost  independent  of  himself, 
always  on  the  watch,  and  claiming  its  share  in  whatever  is  going  on." 

In  his  Lecture  on  Desultory  and  Systematic  Reading,  Sir  James 
Stephen  said  : — "  Learning  is  a  world,  not  a  chaos.  The  various  accu- 
mulations of  human  knowledge  are  not  so  many  detached  masses. 
They  are  all  connected  parts  of  one  great  system  of  truth,  and  though 
that  system  be  infinitely  too  comprehensive  for  any  one  of  us  to  compass, 


JACOTOT.  435 

J.'s  plan  for  reading  and  writing. 

months  hence,  as  now — something — something  which  fairly 
represents  the  subject  to  be  acquired,  which  contains  its 
essential  characteristics.  2.  Repeat  that  "  something  "  in- 
cessantly {sans  cesse),  i.e.,  every  day,  or  very  frequently,  from 
the  beginning,  without  any  omission,  so  that  no  part  may 
be  forgotten.  3.  Reflect  upon  the  matter  thus  acquired, 
so  as,  by  degrees,  to  make  it  a  possession  of  the  mind  as 
well  as  of  the  memory,  so  that,  being  appreciated  as  a 
whole,  and  appreciated  in  its  minutest  parts,  what  is  as  yet 
unknown,  may  be  referred  to  it  and  interpreted  by  it.  4. 
Verify,  or  test,  general  remarks,  e.g.,  grammatical  rules, 
&c.,  made  by  others,  by  comparing  them  with  the  facts  {i.e., 
the  words  and  phraseology)  which  you  have  learnt  yourself, 

§  19.  In  conclusion,  I  will  give  some  account  of  the 
way  in  which  reading,  writing,  and  the  mother-tongue  were 
taught  on  the  Jacototian  system. 

The  teacher  takes  a  book,  say  Edgeworth's  "  Early  Les- 
sons," points  to  the  first  word,  and  names  it,  "  Frank." 
The  child  looks  at  the  word  and  also  pronounces  it.  Then 
the  teacher  does  the  same  with  the  first  two  words,  "Frank 
and ";  then  with  the  three  first,  "  Frank  and  Robert,"  &c. 
When  a  line  or  so  has  been  thus  gone  over,  the  teacher 
asks  which  word  is  Robert  ?  What  word  is  that  (pointing 
to  one)  ?  "  Find  me  the  same  word  in  this  line  "  (pointing 
to  another  part  of  the  book).  When  a  sentence  has  been 
thus  acquired,  the  words  already  known  are  analysed  into 
syllables,  and  these  syllables  the  child  must  pick  out  else- 
yet  each  component  member  of  it  bears  to  every  other  component  member 
relations  which  each  of  us  may,  in  his  own  department  of  study,  search 
out  and  discover  for  himself.  A  man  is  really  and  soundly  learned  in 
exact  proportion  to  the  number  and  to  the  importance  of  those  relations 
which  he  has  thus  carefully  examined  and  accurately  understood." 


436  JACOTOT. 

For  the  mother-tongue. 

where.  Finally,  the  same  thing  is  done  with  letters.  When 
the  child  can  read  a  sentence,  that  sentence  is  put  before 
him  written  in  small-hand,  and  the  child  is  required  to  copy 
it  When  he  has  copied  the  first  word,  he  is  led,  by  the 
questions  of  the  teacher,  to  see  how  it  diffe;rs  from  the 
original,  and  then  he  tries  again.  The  pupil  must  always 
correct  himself,  guided  only  by  questions.  This  sentence 
must  be  worked  at  till  the  pupil  can  write  it  pretty  well  from 
memory.  He  then  tries  it  in  larger  characters.  By  carrying 
out  this  plan,  the  children's  powers  of  observation  and 
making  comparisons  are  strengthened,  and  the  arts  of  reading 
and  writing  are  said  to  be  very  readily  acquired. 

§  20.  For  the  mother-tongue,  a  model  book  is  chosen 
and  thoroughly  learned.  Suppose  "  Rasselas  "  is  selected. 
"  The  pupil  learns  by  heart  a  sentence,  or  a  few  sentences, 
and  to-morrow  adds  a  few  more,  still  repeating  from  the 
beginning.  The  teacher,  after  two  or  three  lessons  of  learn- 
ing and  repeating,  takes  portions — any  portion — of  the 
matter,  and  submits  it  to  the  crucible  of  the  pupil's  mind  : 
— Who  was  Rasselas?  Who  was  his  father?  What  is  the 
father  of  waters  ?  Where  does  it  begin  its  course  ?  Where 
is  Abyssinia?  Where  is  Egypt?  Where  was  Rasselas 
placed  ?  What  sort  of  a  person  was  Rasselas  ?  What  is 
*  credulity '?  What  are  the  '  whispers  of  fancy,'  the  '  pro- 
mises of  youth,'  &c.,  &c.?" 

A  great  variety  of  written  exercises  is  soon  joined  with 
the  learning  by  heart.  Pieces  must  be  written  from  memory, 
and  the  spelling,  pointing,  &c.,  corrected  by  the  pupil  him- 
self from  the  book.  The  same  piece  must  be  written  again 
and  again,  till  there  are  no  more  mistakes  to  correct. 
"  This,"  said  Joseph  Payne,  who  had  himself  taught  in  this 
way,  "  is  the  best  plan  for  spelling  that  has  been  devised." 


JACOTOT.  437 

Method  of  Investigation. 

Then  the  pupil  may  write  an  analysis,  may  define  words, 
distinguish  between  synonyms,  explain  metaphors,  imitate 
descriptions,  write  imaginary  dialogues  or  correspondence 
between  the  characters,  &c.  Besides  these,  a  great  variety 
of  grammatical  exercises  may  be  given,  and  the  force  of 
prefixes  and  affixes  may  be  found  out  by  the  pupils  them- 
selves by  collection  and  comparison.  "  The  resources  even 
of  such  a  book  as  "  Rasselas  "  will  be  found  all  but  exhaust- 
less,  while  the  training  which  the  mind  undergoes  in  the 
process  of  thoroughly  mastering  it,  the  acts  of  analysis,  com- 
parison, induction,  and  deduction,  performed  so  frequently 
as  to  become  a  sort  of  second  nature,  cannot  but  serve  as 
an  excellent  preparation  for  the  subsequent  study  of  English 
literature  "  (Payne). 

§  21.  We  see,  from  these  instances,  how  Jacotot  sought 
to  imitate  the  method  by  which  young  children  and  self- 
taught  men  teach  themselves.  All  such  proceed  from 
objects  to  definitions,  from  facts  to  reflections  and  theories, 
from  examples  to  rules,  from  particular  observations  to 
general  principles.  They  pursue,  in  fact,  however  uncon- 
sciously, the  method  of  investigation,  the  advantages  of  which 
are  thus  set  out  in  a  passage  from  Burke's  treatise  on  the 
Sublime  and  Beautiful  : — "  I  am  convinced,"  says  he,  "  that 
the  method  of  teaching  which  approaches  most  nearly  to 
the  method  of  investigation  is  incomparably  the  best ;  since, 
not  content  with  serving  up  a  few  barren  and  lifeless  truths, 
it  leads  to  the  stock  on  which  they  grew ;  it  tends  to  set 
the  reader  [or  learner]  himself  in  the  track  of  invention,  and 
to  direct  him  into  those  paths  in  which  the  author  has  made 
his  own  discoveries."  "For  Jacotot,  I  think  the  claim  may, 
without  presumption,  be  maintained  that  he  has,  beyond 
all  other  teachers,  succeeded  in  co-ordinating  the  method 


438  JACOTOT. 

Jacotot's  last  days. 

of  elementary  teaching  with  the  method  of  investigation " 
(Payne). 

§  2  2.  The  latter  part  of  his  life,  which  did  not  end  till 
1840,  Jacotot  spent  in  his  native  country — first  at  Valen- 
ciennes, and  then  at  Paris.  To  the  last  he  laboured  inde- 
fatigably,  and  with  a  noble  disinterestedness,  for  what  he 
believed  to  be  the  "  intellectual  emancipation  "  of  his  fellow- 
creatures.  For  a  time,  his  system  made  great  way  in 
France,  but  we  now  hear  Httle  of  it.  Jacotot  has,  however, 
lately  found  an  advocate  in  M.  Bernard  Perez,  who  has  written 
a  book  about  him  and  also  a  very  good  article  in  Buisson's 
Diciionnaire, 


XIX. 

HERBERT  SPENCER.* 


§  I.  I  ONCE  heard  it  said  by  a  teacher  of  great  ability 
that  no  one  without  practical  acquaintance  with  the  subject 
could  write  anything  worth  reading  on  Education.  My  own 
opinion  differs  very  widely  from  this.  I  am  not,  indeed, 
prepared  to  agree  with  another  authority,  much  given  to 
paradox,  that  the  actual  work  of  education  unfits  a  man  for 
forming  enlightened  views  about  it,  but  I  think  that  the 
outsider,  coming  fresh  to  the  subject,  and  unencumbered  by 
tradition  and  prejudice,  may  hit  upon  truths  which  the 
teacher,  whose  attention  is  too  much  engrossed  with 
practical  difficulties,  would  fail  to  perceive  without  assist- 
ance, and  that,  consequently,  the  theories  of  intelligent  men, 
unconnected  with  the  work  of  education,  deserve  our 
careful,  and,  if  possible,  our  impartial  consideration. 

§  2.  One  of  the  most  important  works  of  this  kind 
which  has  lately  appeared,  is  the  treatise  of  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer.  So  eminent  a  writer  has  every  claim  to  be  listened 
to  with  respect,  and  in  this  book  he  speaks  with  more  than 
his  individual  authority.     The  views  he  has  very  vigorously 

*  This  essay,  which  was  written  nearly  twenty-five  years  ago,  I 
leave  as  it  stands.  I  take  some  credit  to  myself  for  having  early  recc^« 
nised  the  importance  of  a  book  now  famous.     (June,  1890.) 


440  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

Same  knowledge  for  discipline  and  use  ? 

propounded  are  shared  by  a  number  of  distinguished 
scientific  men;  and  not  a  few  of  the  unscientific  believe 
that  in  them  is  shadowed  forth  the  education  of  the  future. 

§  3.  It  is  perhaps  to  be  regretted  that  Mr.  Spencer  has 
not  kept  the  tone  of  one  who  investigates  the  truth  in  a 
subject  of  great  difficulty,  but  lays  about  him  right  and 
left,  after  the  manner  of  a  spirited  controversialist.  This, 
no  doubt,  makes  his  book  much  more  entertaining  reading 
than  such  treatises  usually  are,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
has  the  disadvantage  of  arousing  the  antagonism  of  those 
whom  he  would  most  wish  to  influence.  When  the  man 
who  has  no  practical  acquaintance  with  education,  lays 
down  the  law  ex  cathedrd,  garnished  with  sarcasms  at  all 
that  is  now  going  on,  the  schoolmaster,  offended  by  the 
assumed  tone  of  authority,  sets  himself  to  show  where  these 
theories  would  not  work,  instead  of  examining  what  basis  of 
truth  there  is  in  them,  and  how  far  they  should  influence  his 
own  practice. 

I  shall  proceed  to  examine  Mr.  Spencer's  proposals  with 
all  the  impartiality  I  am  master  of. 

§  4.  The  great  question,  whether  the  teachmg  which  gives 
the  most  valuable  knowledge  is  the  same  as  that  which  best 
disciplines  the  faculties  of  the  mind,  Mr.  Spencer  dismisses 
briefly.  "It  would  be  utterly  contrary  to  the  beautiful 
economy  of  nature,"  he  says,  "  if  one  kind  of  culture  were 
needed  for  the  gaining  of  information,  and  another  kind 
were  needed  as  a  mental  gymnastic*  But  it  seems  to  mc 
that  different  subjects  must  be  used  to  train  the  faculties  at 
diff'erent  stages  of  development.     The  processes  of  science. 


*  This  proposition  has  been  ably  discussed  by  President  W.  H. 
Pa3me.  Contributions  to  the  Science  of  Education.  "  Education 
Valves." 


HERBERT   SPENCER.  44I 

Different  stages,  different  knowledges. 

which  form  the  staple  of  education  in  Mr.  Spencer's  system 
cannot  be  grasped  by  the  intellect  of  a  child.  "  The 
sci(;iitific  discoverer  does  the  work,  and  when  it  is  done  the 
schoolboy  is  called  in  to  witness  the  result,  to  learn  its 
chief  features  by  heart,  and  to  repeat  them  when  called 
upon,  just  as  he  is  called  on  to  name  the  mothers  of  the 
patriarchs,  or  to  give  an  account  of  the  Eastern  campaigns 
of  Alexander  the  Great." — {Pall  Mall  G.).  This,  however, 
affords  but  scanty  training  for  the  mind.  We  want  to  draw 
out  the  child's  interests,  and  to  direct  them  to  worthy  objects. 
We  want  not  only  to  teach  him,  but  to  enable  and  encourage 
him  to  teach  himself;  and,  if  following  Mr.  Spencer's  advice, 
we  make  him  get  up  the  species  of  plants,  "  which  amount  to 
some  320,000,"  and  the  varied  forms  of  animal  life,  which 
are  "estimated  at  some  2,000,0000," we  may,  as  Mr.  Spencer 
tells  us,  have  strengthened  his  memory  as  effectually  as  by 
teaching  him  languages ;  but  the  pupil  will,  perhaps  have  no 
great  reason  to  rejoice  over  his  escape  from  the  horrors  of 
the  "As  in  Praesenti,"  and  "Propria  quge  Maribus."  The 
consequences  will  be  the  same  in  both  cases.  We  shall 
disgust  the  great  majority  of  our  scholars  with  the  acquisition 
of  knowledge,  and  with  the  use  of  the  powers  of  their  mind. 
^Vhether,  therefore,  we  adopt  or  reject  Mr.  Spencer's  con- 
clusion, that  there  is  one  sort  of  knowledge  which  is 
universally  the  most  valuable,  I  think  we  must  deny  that 
there  is  one  sort  of  knowledge  which  is  universally  and  at 
every  stage  in  education,  the  best  adapted  to  develop  the 
intellectual  faculties.  Mr.  Spencer  himself  acknowledges  this 
elsewhere.  "  There  is,"  says  he,  "  a  certain  sequence  in  which 
the  faculties  spontaneously  develop,  and  a  certain  kind  of 
knowledge,  which  each  requires  during  its  development.  It  is 
for  us  to  ascertain  this  sequence,  and  supply  this  knowledge. 


442  HERBERT   SPENCER. 

Relative  value  of  knowledges. 

§  5.  Mr.  Spencer  discusses  more  fully  "the  relative  value 
of  knowledges,"  and  this  is  a  subject  which  has  hitherto  not 
met  with  the  attention  it  deserves,  It  is  not  sufRcie'il  for 
us  to  prove  of  any  subject  taught  in  our  schools  that  the 
knowledge  or  the  learning  of  it  is  valuable.  We  must  also 
show  tliat  the  knowledge  or  the  learning  of  it  is  of  at  least 
as  great  value  as  that  of  anything  else  that  might  be  taught 
in  the  same  time.  "  Had  we  time  to  master  all  subjects  we 
need  not  be  particular.     To  quote  the  old  song — 

Could  a  man  be  secure 

That  his  life  would  endure, 

As  of  old,  for  a  thousand  long  years, 

What  things  he  might  know  ! 

What  deeds  he  might  do  ! 

And  all  without  hurry  or  care  ! 

But  wc  that  have  but  span-long  lives  must  ever  bear  in  mind 
our  limited  time  for  acquisition." 

§  6.  To  test  the  value  of  the  learning  imparted  in  edu- 
cation we  must  look  to  the  end  of  education.  This  Mr. 
Spencer  defines  as  follows :  "  To  prepare  us  for  complete 
living  is  the  function  which  education  has  to  discharge,  and 
the  only  rational  mode  of  judging  of  an  educational  course 
is  to  judge  in  what  degree  it  discharges  such  function." 
For  complete  living  we  must  know  "  in  what  way  to  treat  the 
body ;  in  what  way  to  treat  the  mind  ;  in  what  way  to 
manage  our  affairs ;  in  what  way  to  bring  up  a  family  ;  in 
what  way  to  behave  as  a  citizen ;  in  what  way  to  utilise 
those  sources  of  happiness  which  nature  supplies— how  to 
use  all  our  faculties  to  the  greatest  advantage  of  ourselves 
and  others."  There  are  a  number  of  sciences,  says  Mr. 
Spencer,  which  throw  light  on  these  subjects.  It  should, 
therefore,  be  the  business  of  education  to  impart  these  sciences. 


HERBERT  SPENCER.  443 

Knowledge  for  self-preservation. 

But  if  there  were  (which  is  far  from  being  the  case)  a 
well-defined  and  well-established  science  in  each  of  these 
departments,  those  sciences  would  not  be  understandable  by 
children,  nor  would  any  individual  have  time  to  master  the 
whole  of  them,  or  even  "a  due  proportion  of  each."  The 
utmost  that  could  be  attempted  would  be  to  give  young 
people  some  knowledge  of  the  results  of  such  sciences  and 
the  rules  derived  from  them.  But  to  this  Mr.  Spencer 
would  object  that  it  would  tend,  like  the  learning  of 
languages,  "to  increase  the  already  undue  respect  for 
authority." 

§  7.  To  consider  Mr.  Spencer's  divisions  in  detail,  we 
come  first  to  knowledge  that  leads  to  self-preservation. 

"  Happily,  that  all-important  part  of  education  which  goes 
to  secure  direct  self-preservation  is,  in  part,  already  provided 
for.  Too  momentous  to  be  left  to  our  blundering,  Nature 
takes  it  into  her  own  hands."  But  Mr.  Spencer  warns  us 
against  such  thwartings  of  Nature  as  that  by  which  "  stupid 
schoolmistresses  commonly  prevent  the  girls  in  their  charge 
from  the  spontaneous  physical  activities  they  would  indulge 
in,  and  so  render  them  comparatively  incapable  of  taking 
care  of  themselves  in  circumstances  of  peril." 

§  8.  Indirect  self-preservation,  Mr.  Spencer  believes, 
may  be  much  assisted  by  a  knowledge  of  physiology. 
"Diseases  are  often  contracted,  our  members  are  often 
injured,  by  causes  which  superior  knowledge  would  avoid." 
I  believe  these  are  not  the  only  grounds  on  which  the 
advocates  of  physiology  urge  its  claim  to  be  admitted  into 
the  curriculum ;  but  these,  if  they  can  be  established,  are 
no  doubt  very  important.  Is  it  true,  however,  that  doctors 
preserve  their  own  life  and  health  or  that  of  their  children 
by  their  knowledge  of  physiology  ?     I  think  the  matter  is 


444  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

Useful  knowledge  v.  the  classics. 

open  to  dispute.  Mr.  Spencer  does  not.  He  says  very 
truly  that  many  a  man  would  blush  if  convicted  of  ignorance 
about  the  pronunciation  of  Iphigenia,  or  about  the  labouis 
of  Hercules  who,  nevertheless,  would  not  scruple  to  ackiiow- 
ledge  that  he  had  never  heard  of  the  Eustachian  tubes,  and 
could  not  tell  the  normal  rate  of  pulsation.  "  So  terribly," 
adds  Mr.  Spencer,  "  in  our  education  does  the  ornamental 
override  the  useful !"  But  this  is  begging  the  question.  At 
present  classics  form  part  of  the  instruction  given  to  every 
gentleman,  and  physiology  does  not.  This  is  the  simpler 
form  of  Mr.  Spencer's  assertion  about  the  labours  of  Hercules 
and  the  Eustachian  tubes,  and  no  one  denies  it.  But  we 
are  not  so  well  agreed  on  the  comparative  value  of  these 
subjects.  In  his  Address  at  St.  Andrews,  J.  S.  Mill  showed 
that  he  at  least  was  not  convinced  of  the  uselessness  of 
classics,  and  Mr.  Spencer  does  not  tell  us  how  the  know- 
ledge of  the  normal  state  of  pulsation  is  useful ;  how,  to  use 
his  own  test,  it  "influences  action."  However,  whether  we 
admit  the  claims  of  physiology  or  not,  we  shall  probably 
allow  that  there  are  certain  physiological  facts  and  rules  of 
health,  the  knowledge  of  which  would  be  of  great  practical 
value,  and  should  therefore  be  imparted  to  everyone. 
Here  the  doctor  should  come  to  the  schoolmaster's  assist- 
ance, and  give  him  a  manual  from  which  to  teach  them. 

§  9.  Next  in  order  of  importance,  according  to  Mr.  Spen- 
cer, comes  the  knowledge  which  aids  indirect  self-preservation 
by  facilitating  the  gaining  of  a  livelihood.  Here  Mr.  Spencer 
thinks  it  necessary  to  prove  to  us  that  such  sciences  as 
mathematics  and  physics  and  biology  underlie  all  the 
practical  arts  and  business  of  life.  No  one  would  think  of 
joining  issue  with  him  on  this  point ;  but  the  question  still 
remains,   what  influence  should  this   have  on   education? 


HERBERT   SPENCER.  445 

Special  instruction  v.  education. 

"Teach  science,"  says  Mr.  Spencer.  "A  grounding  in 
science  is  of  great  importance,  both  because  it  prepares  for 
all  this  [business  of  Hfe],  and  because  rational  knowledge 
has  an  immense  superiority  over  empirical  knowledge." 
Should  we  teach  all  sciences  to  everybody  ?  This  is  clearly 
impossible.  Should  we,  then,  decide  for  each  child  what 
is  to  be  his  particular  means  of  money-getting,  and  instruct 
him  in  those  sciences  which  will  be  most  useful  in  that 
business  or  profession  ?  In  other  words,  should  we  have 
a  separate  school  for  each  calling  ?  The  only  attempt  of 
this  kind  which  has  been  made  is,  I  believe,  the  institution 
of  Handelschulen  (commercial  schools)  in  Germany.  In 
them,  youths  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  enter  for  a  course  of  two 
or  three  years'  instruction  which  aims  exclusively  at  fitting 
them  for  commerce.  But,  in  this  case,  their  general  edu- 
cation is  already  finished  With  us,  the  lad  commonly  goes 
to  work  at  the  business  itself  quite  as  soon  as  he  has  the 
faculties  for  learning  the  sciences  connected  with  it.  If  the 
school  sends  him  to  it  with  a  love  of  knowledge,  and  with 
a  mind  well  disciplined  to  acquire  knowledge,  this  will  be 
of  more  value  to  him  than  any  special  information. 

§  lo.  As  Mr.  Spencer  is  here  considering  science  merely 
with  reference  to  its  importance  in  earning  a  livelihood,  it 
is  not  beside  the  question  to  remark,  that  in  a  great  number 
of  instances,  the  knowledge  of  the  science  which  underlies 
an  operation  confers  no  practical  ability  whatever.  No  one 
sees  the  better  for  understanding  the  structure  of  the  eye 
and  the  undulatory  theory  of  light.  In  swimming  or 
rowing,  a  senior  wrangler  has  no  advantage  over  a  man 
who  is  entirely  ignorant  about  the  laws  of  fluid  pressure. 
As  far  as  money-getting  is  concerned  then,  science  will  not 
be  found  to  be  universally  serviceable.  Mr.  Spencer  gives 
31 


44^  HERBERT   SPENCER. 

Scientific  knowledge  and  money-making". 

instances  indeed,  where  science  would  prevent  very 
expensive  blundering;  but  the  true  inference  is,  not  that 
the  blunderers  should  learn  science,  but  that  they  should 
mind  their  own  business,  and  take  the  opinion  of  scien- 
tific men  about  theirs.  "Here  is  a  mine,"  says  he,  "in 
the  sinking  of  which  many  shareholders  ruined  them- 
selves, from  not  knowing  that  a  certain  fossil  belonged  to 
the  old  red  sandstone,  below  which  no  coal  is  found." 
Perhaps  they  were  misled  by  the  little  knowledge  which 
Pope  tells  us  is  a  dangerous  thing.  If  they  had  been 
entirely  ignorant,  they  would  surely  have  called  in  a  pro- 
fessional geologist,  whose  opinion  would  have  been  more 
valuable  than  their  own,  even  though  geology  had  taken  the 
place  of  classics  in  their  schooling.  "  Daily  are  men  induced 
to  aid  in  carrying  out  inventions  which  a  mere  tyro  in 
science  could  show  to  be  futile."  But  these  are  men  whose 
function  it  would  always  be  to  lose  money,  not  make  it, 
whatever  you  might  teach  them.*  I  have  great  doubt, 
therefore,  whether  the  learning  of  sciences  will  ever  be  found 
a  ready  way  of  making  a  fortune.  But  directly  we  get 
beyond  the  region  of  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence,  I  agree 
most  cordially  with  Mr.  Spencer  that  a  rational  knowledge 
has  an  immense  superiority  over  empirical  knowledge. 
And,  as  a  part  of  their  education,  boys  should  be  taught  to 
distinguJih  the  one  from  the  other,  and  to  desire  rational 
knowledge.  Much  might  be  done  in  this  way  by  teaching, 
not  all  the  sciences  and  nothing  else,  but  the  main  principles 
of  some  one  science,  which  would  enable  the  more  intelli- 
gent boys  to  understand  and  appreciate  the  value  of  "a 
rational  explanation  of  phenomena."     I  believe  this  addi- 

*  "The  brewer,"  as  Mr.  Spencer  himself  tells  us,  "  if  his  business  is 
very  extensive,  finds  it  pay  to  keep  a  chemist  on  the  premises  " — pay  a 
good  deal  better,  I  suspect,  than  learning  chemistry  at  school. 


HERBERT   SPENCER.  447 

Knowledge  about  rearing  offspring. 

tion  to  what  was  before  a  literary  education  has  already  been 
made  in  some  of  our  leading  schools,  as  Harrow,  Rugby, 
and  the  City  of  London.* 

§  II.  Next,  Mr.  Spencer  would  have  instruction  in  the 
pioper  way  of  rearing  offspring  form  a  part  of  his  curriculum. 
There  can  be  no  question  of  the  importance  of  this  know- 
ledge, and  all  that  Mr.  Spencer  says  of  the  lamentable 
ignorance  of  parents  is,  unfortunately,  no  less  undeniable. 
But  could  this  knowledge  be  imparted  early  in  life  ?  Young 
people  would  naturally  take  but  little  interest  in  it.  It  is 
by  parents,  or  at  least  by  those  who  have  some  notion  of 
the  parental  responsibility,  that  this  knowledge  should  be 
sought.  The  best  way  in  which'  we  can  teach  the  young 
will  be  so  to  bring  them  up  that  when  they  themselves  have 
to  rear  children  the  remembrance  of  their  own  youth  may 
be  a  guide  and  not  a  beacon  to  them.  But  more  knowledge 
than  this  is  necessary,  and  I  differ  from  Mr.  Spencer  only  as 
to  the  proper  time  for  acquiring  it. 

§  12.  Next  comes  the  knowledge  which  fits  a  man  for 
the  discharge  of  his  functions  as  a  citizen,  a  subject  to  which 
Dr.  Arnold  attached  great  importance  at  the  time  of  tliC 
first  Reform  Bill,  and  which  deserves  our  attention  all  the 

*  Helps,  who  by  taste  and  talent  is  eminently  literary,  put  in  this 
claim  for  science  more  than  20  [now  nearer  50]  years  ago.  "The 
higher  branches  of  method  cannot  be  taught  at  first ;  but  you  may  begin 
by  teaching  orderliness  of  mind.  Collecting,  classifying,  contrasting, 
and  weighing  facts  are  some  of  the  processes  by  which  method  is  taught. 
.  .  .  Scientific  method  may  be  acquired  without  many  sciences  being 
learnt ;  but  one  or  two  great  branches  of  science  must  be  accurately 
known."  {^Friends  in  Council,  Education.)  Helps,  though  by  his 
delightful  style  he  never  gives  the  reader  any  notion  of  over  compression, 
has  told  us  more  truth  about  education  in  a  few  pages  than  one  some- 
times meets  with  in  a  complete  treatise. 


448  HERBERT   SPENCER. 

Knowledge  of  history :  its  nature  and  use. 

more  in  consequence  of  the  second  and  third.  But  what 
knowledge  are  we  to  give  for  this  purpose  ?  One  of  the 
subjects  which  seem  especially  suitable  is  history.  But 
history,  as  it  is  now  written,  is,  according  to  Mr.  Spencer, 
useless.  "It  does  not  illustrate  the  right  principles  of 
political  action."  "  The  great  mass  of  historical  facts  are 
facts  from  which  no  conclusions  can  be  drawn — unorganis- 
able  facts,  and,  therefore,  facts  of  no  service  in  establishing 
principles  of  conduct,  which  is  the  chief  use  of  facts.  Read 
them  if  you  like  for  amusement,  but  do  not  flatter  yourself 
they  are  instructive."  About  the  right  principles  of  political 
action  we  seem  so  completely  at  sea  that,  perhaps,  the  main 
thing  we  can  do  for  the  young  is  to  point  out  to  them  the 
responsibilities  which  will  hereafter  devolve  upon  them,  and 
the  danger,  both  to  the  state  and  the  individual,  of  just 
echoing  the  popular  cry  without  the  least  reflection, 
according  to  our  present  usage.  But  history,  as  it  is  now 
written  by  great  historians,  may  be  of  some  use  in  training 
the  young  both  to  be  citizens  and  men.  "  Reading  about 
the  fifteen  decisive  battles,  or  all  the  battles  in  history, 
would  not  make  a  man  a  more  judicious  voter  at  the  next 
election,"  says  Mr.  Spencer.  But  is  this  true  ?  The  know- 
ledge of  what  has  been  done  in  other  times,  even  by  those 
whose  coronation  renders  them  so  distasteful  to  Mr.  Spencer, 
is  knowledge  which  influences  a  man's  whole  character,  and 
may,  therefore,  affect  particular  acts,  even  when  we  are 
unable  to  trace  the  connexion.  As  it  has  been  often  said, 
the  effect  of  reading  history  is,  in  some  respects,  the  same 
as  that  of  travelling.  Anyone  in  Mr.  Spencer's  vein  might 
ask,  "  If  a  man  has  seen  the  Alps,  of  what  use  will  that  be 
to  him  in  weighing  out  groceries  ?  "  Directly,  none  at  all ; 
but  indirectly,  much.     The  travelled  man  will  not  be  such 


HERBERT   SPENCER.  449 

Use  of  history. 


a  slave  to  the  petty  views  and  customs  of  his  trade  as  the 
man  who  looks  on  his  county  town  as  the  centre  of  the 
universe.  The  study  of  history,  like  travelling,  widens  the 
student's  mental  vision,  frees  him  to  some  extent  from  the 
bondage  of  the  present,  and  prevents  his  mistaking  conven- 
tionalities for  laws  of  nature.  It  brings  home  to  him,  in 
all  its  force,  the  truth  that  "  there  are  also  people  beyond 
the  mountain"  {Hinter  dent  Berge  sind  auch  Leuie),  that 
there  are  higher  interests  in  the  world  than  his  own  business 
concerns,  and  nobler  men  than  himself  or  the  best  of  his 
acquaintance.  It  teaches  him  what  men  are  capable  of, 
and  thus  gives  him  juster  views  of  his  race.  And  to  have 
all  this  truth  worked  into  the  mind  contributes  perhaps  as 
largely  to  "  complete  living  "  as  knowledge  of  the  Eustachian 
tubes  or  of  the  normal  rate  of  pulsation.*  I  think,  therefore, 
that  the  works  of  great  historians  and  biographers,  which  we 
already  possess,  may  be  usefully  employed  in  education. 
It  is  difficult  to  estimate  the  value  of  history  according  to 
Mr.  Spencer's  idea,  as  it  has  yet  to  be  written ;  but  I 
venture  to  predict  that  if  boys,  instead  of  reading  about 
the  history  of  nations  in  connection  with  their  leading  men, 
are  required  to  study  only  "  the  progress  of  society,"  the 
subject  will  at  once  lose  all  its   interest   for  them ;  and, 


*  J.  S.  Mill  (who  by  the  way,  would  leave  history  entirely  to  private 
reading,  Address  at  St.  Andrews,  p.  21),  has  pointed  out  that  "there  is 
not  a  fact  in  history  which  is  not  susceptible  of  as  many  different  ex- 
planations as  there  are  possible  theories  of  human  affairs,"  and  that 
•'  history  is  not  the  foundation  but  the  verification  of  the  social  science." 
But  he  admits  that  "  what  we  know  of  former  ages,  like  what  we  know 
of  foreign  nations,  is,  with  all  its  imperfectness,  of  much  use,  by  correct- 
ing the  narrowness  incident  tp  personal  experience."  (Dissertations, 
Vol.  I,  p.  112.) 


450  HERBERT   SPENCER. 

Employment  of  leisure  hours. 

perhaps,  many  of  the  facts  communicated  will  prove,  after 
all,  no  less  unorganisable  than  the  fifteen  decisive  battles. 

§  13.  Lastly,  we  come  to  that  "remaining  division  of 
liuman  life  which  includes  the  relaxations  and  amusements 
filling  leisure  hours."  Mr.  Spencer  assures  us  that  he  will 
yield  to  none  in  the  value  he  attaches  to  aesthetic  culture 
and  its  pleasures ;  but  if  he  does  not  value  the  fine  arts 
less,  he  values  science  more ;  and  paintring,  music,  and 
poetry  would  receive  as  little  encouragement  under  his 
dictatorship  as  in  the  days  of  the  Commonwealth.  "As 
the  fine  arts  and  belles-lettres  occupy  the  leisure  part  of 
life,  so  should  they  occupy  the  leisure  part  of  education." 
This  language  is  rather  obscure ;  but  the  only  meaning  I 
can  attach  lo  it  is,  that  music,  drawing,  poetry,  &c.,  may 
be  taught  if  time  can  be  found  when  all  other  knowledges 
are  provided  for.  This  reminds  me  of  the  author  whose 
works  are  so  valuable  that  they  will  be  studied  when  Shaks- 
peare  is  forgotten — but  not  before.  Anyone  of  the  sciences 
which  Mr.  Spencer  considers  so  necessary  might  employ  a 
lifetime.  Where  then  shall  we  look  for  the  leisure  part  of 
education  when  education  includes  them  all  ?  * 

*  It  is  difficult  to  treat  seriously  the  arguments  by  which  Mr.  Sper  cer 
endeavours  to  show  that  a  knowledge  of  science  is  necessary  for  the 
practice  or  the  enjoyment  of  the  fine  arts.  Of  course,  the  highest  art  cf 
every  kind  is  based  on  science,  that  is,  on  truths  which  science  takes 
cognizance  of  and  explains  ;  but  it  does  not  therefore  follow  that  "with- 
out science  there  can  be  neither  perfect  production  nor  full  appreciation. " 
Mr.  Spencer  tells  us  of  mistakes  which  John  Lewis  and  Rossetti  ha\e 
made  for  want  of  science.  Very  likely  ;  and  had  those  gentlemen  de- 
roted  much  ot  their  time  to  science  we  should  never  have  heard  of  their 
blunders — or  of  their  pictures  either.  If  they  were  to  paint  a  piece  of 
woodwork,  a  carpenter  might,  perhaps,  detect  something  amiss  in  the 
mitring.     If  they  painted  a  wall,  a  bricklayer  might  point  out  that  with 


HERBERT  SPENCER.  45  I 

Poetry  and  the  Arts. 

§  14.  But,  if  adopting  Mr.  Spencer's  own  measure,  we 
estimate  the  value  of  knowledge  by  its  influence  on  action, 
we  shall  probably  rank  "  accomplishments  "  much  higher 
than  they  have  hitherto  been  placed  in  the  schemes  of 
educationists.  Knowledge  and  skill  connected  with  the 
business  of  life,  are  of  necessity  acquired  in  the  discliarge 
of  business.  But  the  knowledge  and  skill  which  make  our 
leisure  valuable  to  ourselves  and  a  source  of  pleasure  to 
others,  can  seldom  be  gained  after  the  work  of  life  has 
begun.  And  yet  every  day  a  man  may  benefit  by  possess- 
ing such  an  ability,  or  may  suffer  from  the  want  of  it 
One  whose  eyesight  has  been  trained  by  drawing  and 
painting  finds  objects  of  interest  all  around  him,  to  which 

their  arrangement  of  stretchers  and  headers  the  wall  would  tumble  down 
for  want  of  a  proper  bond.  But  even  Mr.  Spencer  would  not  wish 
them  to  spend  their  time  in  mastering  the  technicalities  of  every  handi- 
craft, in  order  to  avoid  these  inaccuracies.  It  is  the  business  of  the 
painter  to  give  us  form  and  colour  as  they  reveal  themselves  to  the  eye, 
not  to  prepare  illustrations  of  scientific  text-books.  The  physical 
sciences,  however,  are  only  part  of  the  painter's  necessary  equipment, 
according  to  Mr.  Spencer.  "  He  must  also  understand  how  the  minds 
of  spectators  will  be  affected  by  the  several  peculiarities  of  his  work — a 
question  in  psychology  !"  Still  more  surprising  is  Mr.  Spencer's  dictum 
about  poetry.  "  Its  rhythm,  its  strong  and  numerous  metaphors,  its 
h3rperboles,  its  violent  inversions,  are  simply  exaggerations  of  the  traits 
of  excited  speech.  To  be  good,  therefore,  poetry  must  pay  attention  to 
those  laws  of  nervous  action  which  excited  speech  obeys."  It  is  difficult 
to  see  how  poetry  can  pay  attention  to  anything.  The  poet,  of  course 
must  not  violate  those  laws,  but,  if  he  has  paid  attention  to  them  in 
composing,  he  will  do  well  to  present  his  MS.  to  the  local  newspaper. 
[It  seems  the  class  is  not  extinct  of  whom  Pope  wrote  : — 
"  Some  drily  plain,  without  invention's  aid 
*'  Write  dull  receipts  how  poems  may  be  made." 

Essay  on  Criticism^ 


452  HERBERT   SPENCER. 

More  than  science  needed  for  complete  living-. 

other  people  are  blind.  A  primrose  by  a  river's  brim  is, 
perhaps,  more  to  him  who  has  a  feeling  for  its  form  and 
colour  than  even  to  the  scientific  student,  who  can  tell  all 
about  its  classification  and  component  parts.  A  knowledge 
of  music  is  often  of  the  greatest  practical  service,  as  by 
virtue  of  it,  its  possessor  is  valuable  to  his  associates,  to 
say  nothing  of  his  having  a  constant  source  of  pleasure 
and  a  means  of  recreation  which  is  most  precious  as  a  relief 
from  the  cares  of  life.  Of  far  greater  importance  is  the 
knowledge  of  our  best  poetry.  One  of  the  first  reforms 
in  our  school  course  would  have  been,  I  should  have 
thought,  to  give  this  knowledge  a  much  more  prominent 
place;  but  Mr.  Spencer  consigns  it,  with  music  and  drawing, 
to  "  the  leisure  part  of  education."  Whether  a  man  who 
was  engrossed  by  science,  who  had  no  knowledge  of  the 
fine  arts  except  as  they  illustrated  scientific  laws,  no 
acquaintance  with  the  lives  of  great  men,  or  with  any  his- 
tory but  sociology,  and  who  studied  the  thoughts  and 
emotions  expressed  by  our  great  poets  merely  with  a  view 
to  their  pyschological  classification — whether  such  a  man 
could  be  said  to  "  live  completely  "  is  a  question  to  which 
every  one,  not  excepting  Mr.  Spencer  himself,  would  pro- 
bably return  the  same  answer.  And  yet  this  is  the  kind  of 
man  which  Mr.  Spencer's  system  would  produce  where  it 
was  most  successful. 

§  15.  Let  me  now  briefly  sum  up  the  conclusions  arrived 
at,  and  consider  how  far  I  differ  from  Mr.  Spencer.  I 
believe  that  there  is  no  one  study  which  is  suited  to  train 
the  faculties  of  the  mind  at  every  stage  of  its  development, 
and  that  when  we  have  decided  on  the  necessity  of  this  or 
that  knowledge,  we  must  consider  further  what  is  the  right 
time  for  acquiring  it.     I  believe  that  intellectual  education 


HERBERT   SPENCER.  453 

Objections  to  H.  S.'s  curriculum. 

should  aim,  not  so  much  at  communicating  facts,  however 
valuable,  as  at  showing  the  boy  what  true  knowledge  is, 
and  giving  him  the  power  and  the  dispositiofi  to  acquire  it. 
I  believe  that  the  exclusively  scientific  teaching  which  Mr. 
Spencer  approves  would  not  effect  this.  It  would  lead  at 
best  to  a  very  one-sided  development  of  the  mind.  It 
might  fail  to  engage  the  pupil's  interest  sufficiently  to  draw 
out  his  faculties,  and  in  this  case  the  net  outcome  of  his 
school-days  would  be  no  larger  than  at  present.  Of  the 
knowledges  which  Mr.  Spencer  recommends  for  special 
objects,  some,  I  think,  would  not  conduce  to  the  object,  and 
some  could  not  be  communicated  early  in  life,  (i.)  For 
indirect  self-preservation  we  do  not  require  to  know  phy- 
siology, but  the  results  of  physiology.  (2.)  The  science 
which  bears  on  special  pursuits  in  life  has  not,  in  many 
cases,  any  pecuniary  value,  and  although  it  is  most  desirable 
that  every  one  should  study  the  science  which  makes  his 
work  intelligible  to  him,  this  must  usually  be  done  when 
his  schooling  is  over.  The  school  will  have  done  its  part 
if  it  has  accustomed  him  to  the  intellectual  processes  by 
which  sciences  are  learned,  and  has  given  him  an  intelligent 
appreciation  of  their  value.*  (3.)  The  right  way  of  rearing 
and  training  children  should  be  studied,  but  not  by  the 
children  themselves.     (4.)  The  knowledge  which  fits  a  man 

*  Speaking  of  law,  medicine,  engineering,  and  the  industrial  arts,  J. 
S.  Mill  remarks  :  "  Whether  those  whose  speciality  they  are  will  learn 
them  as  a  branch  of  intelligence  or  as  a  mere  trade,  and  whether  having 
learnt  them,  they  will  make  a  wise  and  conscientious  use  of  them,  or 
the  reverse,  depends  less  on  the  manner  in  which  they  are  taught  their 
profession,  than  u^onwhat  sort  0/ mind  they  bring  to  it — what  kind  oj 
intelligence  and  of  conscience  the  general  system  of  education  has  deve* 
loped  in  them." — Address  at  St.  Andrews,  p.  6 


454  HERBERT   SPENCER. 

Citizen's  duties.    Things  not  to  teach. 

to  discharge  his  duties  as  a  citizen  is  of  great  importance, 
and,  as  Dr.  Arnold  pointed  out,  is  Hkely  to  be  entirely 
neglected  by  those  who  have  to  struggle  for  a  livelihood. 
The  schoolmaster  should,  therefore,  by  no  means  neglect 
this  subject  with  those  of  his  pupils  whose  school-days  will 
soon  be  over,  but,  probably,  all  that  he  can  do  is  to  cultivate 
in  them  a  sense  of  the  citizen's  duty,  and  a  capacity  for 
being  their  own  teachers.  (5.)  The  knowledge  of  poetry, 
belles-lettres,  and  the  fine  arts,  which  Mr.  Spencer  hands 
over  to  the  leisure  part  of  education,  is  the  only  knowledge 
in  his  program  which  I  think  should  most  certainly  form 
a  prominent  part  in  the  curriculum  of  every  school. 

§  16.  I  therefore  differ,  though  with  great  respect,  from 
the  conclusions  at  which  Mr.  Spencer  has  arrived.  But  I 
heartily  agree  with  him  that  we  are  bound  to  inquire  into 
the  relative  value  of  knowledges,  and  if  we  take,  as  I  should 
willingly  do,  Mr.  Spencer's  test,  and  ask  how  does  this  or 
that  knowledge  influence  action  (including  in  our  inquiry 
its  influence  on  mind  and  character,  through  which  it  bears 
upon  action),  I  think  we  should  banish  from  our  schools 
much  that  has  hitherto  been  taught  in  them,  besides  those 
old  tormentors  of  youth  (laid,  I  fancy,  at  last — requiescant 
in  pace) — the  Propria  qux  Maribus  and  its  kindred  ab- 
surdities. What  we  should  teach  is,  of  course,  not  so  easily 
decided  as  what  we  should  not. 

§  17.  I  now  come  to  consider  Mr.  Spencer's  second 
chapter,  in  which,  under  the  heading  of  "  Intellectual  Edu- 
cation," he  gives  an  admirable  summing  up  of  the  main 
principles  in  which  the  great  writers  on  the  subject  have 
agreed,  from  Comenius  downwards.  These  principles  are, 
perhaps,  not  all  of  them  unassailable,  and  even  where  they 
are  true,  many  mistakes  must  be  expected  before  we  arrive 


HERBERT   SPENCER.  455 

Need  of  a  science  of  education. 

at  the  best  method  of  applying  them  ;  but  the  only  reason 
that  can  be  assigned  for  the  small  amount  of  influence  they 
have  hitherto  exercised  is,  that  most  teachers  are  as  ignorant 
of  them  as  of  the  abstrusest  doctrines  of  Kant  and  Hegel. 

§  1 8.  In  stating  these  principles  Mr.  Spencer  points  out 
that  they  merely  form  a  commencement  for  a  science  of 
education.  "  Before  educational  methods  can  be  made  to 
harmonise  in  character  and  arrangement  with  the  faculties 
in  the  mode  and  order  of  unfolding,  it  is  first  needful  that 
we  ascertain  with  some  completeness  how  the  faculties  do 
unfold.  At  present  we  have  acquired  on  this  point  only  a 
few  general  notions.  These  general  notions  must  be  de- 
veloped in  detail — must  be  transformed  into  a  multitude  of 
specific  propositions  before  we  can  be  said  to  possess  that 
science  on  which  the  art  of  education  must  be  based.  And 
then,  when  we  have  definitely  made  out  in  what  succession 
and  in  what  combinations  the  mental  powers  become  active, 
it  remains  to  choose  out  of  the  many  possible  ways  of 
exercising  each  of  them,  that  which  best  conforms  to  its 
natural  mode  of  action.  Evidently,  therefore,  it  is  not  to 
be  supposed  that  even  our  most  advanced  modes  of  teaching 
are  the  right  ones,  or  nearly  the  right  ones."  It  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at  that  we  have  no  science  of  education. 
Those  who  have  been  able  to  observe  the  phenomena  have 
had  no  interest  in  generalising  from  them.  Up  to  the 
present  time  the  schoolmaster  has  been  a  person  to  whom 
boys  were  sent  to  learn  Latin  and  Greek.  He  has  had, 
therefore,  no  more  need  of  a  science  than  the  dancing- 
master*     But  the  present  century,  which  has  brought  in  so 

*  Comme  vous  n'avez  pas  su  ou  comme  vous  n'avez  pas  voulu 
atteindre  la  pensee  de  I'enfant,  vous  n'avez  aucune  action   sur  son  de- 


456  HERBERT   SPENCER. 

Hope  of  a  science. 

many  changes,  will  not  leave  the  state  of  education  as  it 
found  it  Latin  and  Greek,  if  they  are  not  dethroned  in 
our  higher  schools,  will  have  their  despotism  changed  for 
a  very  limited  monarchy.  A  course  of  instruction  certainly 
without  Greek  and  perhaps  without  Latin  will  have  to  be 
provided  for  middle  schools.  Juster  views  are  beginning 
to  prevail  of  the  schoolmaster's  function.  It  is  at  length 
perceived  that  he  has  to  assist  the  development  of  the 
human  mind,  and  perhaps,  by-and-bye,  he  may  think  it  as 
well  to  learn  all  he  can  of  that  which  he  is  em.ployed  in 
developing.  When  matters  have  advanced  as  far  as  this, 
we  may  begin  to  hope  for  a  science  of  education.  In 
Locke's  day  he  could  say  of  physical  science  that  there  was 
no  such  science  in  existence.  For  thousands  of  years  the 
human  race  had  lived  in  ignorance  of  the  simplest  laws  of 
the  world  it  inhabited.  But  the  true  method  of  inquiring 
once  introduced,  science  has  made  such  rapid  conquests, 
and  acquired  so  great  importance,  that  some  of  our  ablest 
men  seem  inclined  to  deny,  if  not  the  existence,  at  least 
the  value,  of  any  other  kind  of  knowledge.  So,  too,  when 
teachers  seek  by  actual  observation  to  discover  the  laws  of 
mental  development,  a  science  may  be  arrived  at,  which,  in 
its  influence  on  mankind,  would  perhaps  rank  before  any 
we  now  possess. 

§  19.  Those  who  have  read  the  previous  Essays  will 
have  seen  in  various  forms  most  of  the  principles  which  Mr. 
Spencer  enumerates,  but  I  gladly  avail  myself  of  his  assist- 
ance in  summing  them  up. 

I.  We  should  proceed  from  the  simple  to  the  complex, 

veloppement  moral  et  intellectuel.  Vous  6tes  le  maitre  de  latin  et  de 
grec. "     Breal.  Quelques  Mots,  &'c. ,  p.  243. 


HERBERT   SPENCER.  457 

From  simple  to  complex :  known  to  unknown. 

both  in  our  choice  of  subjects  and  in  the  way  in  which  each 
subject  is  taught.  We  should  begin  with  but  few  subjects 
at  once,  and,  successively  adding  to  these,  should  finally 
carry  on  all  subjects  ab.reast. 

Each  larger  concept  is  made  by  a  combination  of  smallei 
ones,  and  presupposes  them.  If  this  order  is  not  attended 
to  in  communicating  knowledge,  the  pupil  can  learn  nothing 
but  words,  and  will  speedily  sink  into  apathy  and  disgust. 

§  20.  That  we  must  proceed  from  the  known  to  the  un 
known  is  something  more  than  a  corollary  to  the  above  ;* 
because  not  only  are  new  concepts  formed  by  the  combina- 
tion of  old,  but  the  mind  has  a  liking  for  what  it  knows,  and 
this  liking  extends  itself  to  all  that  can  be  connected  with 
its  object.  The  principle  of  using  the  known  in  teaching 
l^e  unknown  is  so  simple,  that  all  teachers  who  really 
endeavour  to  make  anything  understood,  naturally  adopt 
it.  The  traveller  who  is  describing  what  he  has  seen  and 
what  we  have  not  seen  tells  us  that  it  is  in  one  particular 
like  this  object,  and  in  another  like  that  object,  with  which 
we  are  already  familiar.  We  combine  these  different 
concepts  we  possess,  and  so  get  some  notion  of  things  about 
which  we  were  previously  ignorant.  What  is  required  in  our 
teaching  is  that  the  use  of  the  know  nshould  be  employed 
more  systematically.  Most  teachers  think  of  boys  who 
have  no  school  learning  as  entirely  ignorant.  The  least 
reflection  shows,  however,  that  they  know  already  much 
more  than  schools  can  ever  teach  them.  A  sarcastic 
examiner  is  said  to  have  handed  a  small  piece  of  paper  to  a 
student  and  told  him  to  write  all  he  knew  on  it.     Perhaps 

*  Mr.  Spencer  does  not  mention  this  principle  in  his  enumeration, 
Vut,  -io  doubt,  considers  he  implies  it. 


45  8  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

Connecting  schoolwork  with  life  outside. 

many  boys  would  have  no  difficulty  in  stating  the  sum  of 
their  school-learning  within  very  narrow  limits,  but  with 
other  knowledge  a  child  of  five  years  old,  could  he  write, 
might  soon  fill  a  volume.*  Our  aim  should  be  to  connect 
the  knowledge  boys  bring  with  them  to  the  schoolroom  with 
that  which  they  are  to  acquire  there.f  I  suppose  all  will 
allow,  whether  they  think  it  a  matter  of  regret  or  otherwise, 
that  hardly  anything  of  the  kind  has  hitherto  been  attempted. 
Against  this  state  of  things  I  cannot  refrain  from  borrowing 
Mr.  Spencer's  eloquent  protest.  "  Not  recognising  the 
truth  that  the  function  of  books  is  supplementary — that  they 
form  an  indirect  means  to  knowledge  when  direct  means 
fail,  a  means  of  seeing  through  other  men  what  you  cannot 
see  for  yourself,  teachers  are  eager  to  give  second-hand  facts 
in  place  of  first-hand  facts.  Not  perceiving  the  enormous 
value  of  that  spontaneous  education  which  goes  on  in  early 
years,  not  perceiving  that  a  child's  restless  observation, 
instead  of  being  ignored  or  checked,  should  be  diligently 
ministered  to,  and  made  as  accurate  and  complete  as  possi- 
ble, they  insist  on  occupying  its  eyes  and  thoughts  with 
things  that  are,  for  the  time  being,  incomprehensible  and 
repugnant.     Possessed  by  a  superstition  which  worships  the 

*  "Si  Ton  partageait  toute  la  science  humaine  en  deux  parties,  I'une 
commune  k  tous  les  hommes,  I'autre  particuli^re  aux  savants,  celle-ci 
serait  tres-petite  en  comparaison  de  I'autre.  Mais  nous  ne  songeons 
guere  aux  acquisitions  generales,  parce  qu'elles  se  font  sans  qu'on  y 
pense,  et  meme  avant  I'age  de  raison ;  que  d'ailleurs  le  savoir  ne  se  fait 
remarquer  que  par  ses  differences,  et  que,  comme  dans  les  equations 
d'algebre,  les  quantites  communes  se  comptent  pour  rien." — JlSmi7e, 
livre  L 

t  This  is  well  said  in  Dr.  John  Brown's  admirable  paper  Ediuation 
through  the  Senses.     (Horse  Subsecivas,  pp.  313,  314.) 


HERBERT   SPENCER.  459 

Books  and  life. 

symbols  of  knowledge  instead  of  the  knowledge  itself,  they 
do  not  see  that  only  when  his  acquaintance  with  the  objects 
and  processes  of  the  household,  the  street,  and  the  fields, 
is  becoming  tolerably  exhaustive,  only  then  should  a  child 
be  introduced  to  the  new  sources  of  information  which 
books  supply,  and  this  not  only  because  immediate  cogni- 
tion is  of  far  greater  value  than  mediate  cognition,  but  also 
because  the  words  contained  in  books  can  be  rightly  inter- 
preted into  ideas  only  in  proportion  to  the  antecedent 
experience  of  things."*  While  agreeing  heartily  in  the  spirit 
of  this  protest,  I  doubt  whether  we  should  wait  till  the 
child's  acquaintance  with  the  objects  and  processes  of  the 
household,  the  streets,  and  the  fields,  is  becoming  tolerably 
exhaustive  before  we  give  him  instructiorwfrom  books.  The 
point  of  time  which  Mr.  Spencer  indicates  is,  at  all  events, 
rather  hard  to  fix,  and  I  should  wish  to  connect  book-learn- 
ing as  soon  as  possible  with  the  learning  that  is  being 
acquired  in  other  ways.  Thus  might  both  the  books,  and 
the  acts  and  objects  of  daily  life,  win  an  additional  interest. 
If,  e.g.,  the  first  reading-books  were  about  the  animals,  and 
later  on  about  the  trees  and  flowers  which  the  children  con  • 
stantly  meet  with,  and  their  attention  was  kept  up  by  large 
coloured  pictures,  to  which  the  text  might  refer,  the  children 


*  After  remarking  on  the  wrong  order  in  which  subjects  are  taught, 
he  continues,  "What  with  perceptions  unnaturally  dulled  by  early 
thwartings,  and  a  coerced  attention  to  books,  what  with  the  mental  con- 
fusion produced  by  teaching  subjects  before  they  can  be  understood,  and 
in  each  of  them  giving  generalisations  before  the  facts  of  which  they  are 
the  generalisations,  what  with  making  the  pupil  a  mere  passive  recipient 
of  others'  ideas  and  not  in  the  least  leading  him  to  be  an  active  inquirer 
or  self-instructor,  and  what  with  taxing  the  faculties  to  excess,  there  are 
very  few  minds  that  become  as  efficient  as  they  might  be. " 


460  HERBERT   SPENCER. 

Mistakes  in  grammar  teaching. 

would  soon  find  both  pleasure  and  advantage  in  reading, 
and  they  would  look  at  the  animals  and  trees  with  a  keener 
interest  from  the  additional  knowledge  of  them  they  had 
derived  from  books.  This  is,  of  course,  only  one  small 
application  of  a  very  influential  principle. 

§  21.  One  marvellous  instance  of  the  neglect  of  this  prin- 
ciple is  found  in  the  practice  of  teaching  Latin  grammar 
before  English  grammar.  As  Professor  Seeley  has  so  well 
pointed  out,  children  bring  with  them  to  school  the  know- 
ledge of  language  in  its  concrete  form.  They  may  soon  be 
taught  to  observe  the  language  they  already  know,  and  to 
find,  almost  for  themselves,  some  of  the  main  divisions  of 
words  in  it.  But,  instead  of  availing  himself  of  the  child's 
previous  knowledge,  the  schoolmaster  takes  a  new  and 
difficult  language,  differing  as  much  as  possible  from  English, 
a  new  and  difficult  science,  that  of  grammar,  conveyed,  too, 
in  a  new  and  difficult  terminology,  and  all  this  he  tries  to 
teach  at  the  same  time.  The  consequence  is  that  the 
science  is  destroyed,  the  terminology  is  either  misunderstood, 
or,  more  probably,  associated  with  no  ideas,  and  even  the 
language  for  which  every  sacrifice  is  made,  is  found,  in  nine 
cases  out  of  ten,  never  to  be  acquired  at  all* 

*  A  class  of  boys  whom  I  once  took  in  Latin  Delectus  denied,  with 
the  utmost  confidence,  when  I  questioned  them  on  the  subject,  that  there 
were  any  such  things  in  English  as  verbs  and  substantives.  On  another 
occasion,  I  saw  a  poor  boy  of  nine  or  ten  caned,  because,  when  he  had 
Baid  that  pi-oficiscor  was  a  deponent  verb,  he  could  not  say  what  a  depo- 
nent verb  was.  Even  if  he  had  remembered  the  inaccurate  grammar 
definition  expected  of  him,  "  A  deponent  verb  is  a  verb  with  a  passive 
form  and  an  active  meaning,"  his  comprehension  of  proficiscor  would 
have  been  no  greater.  It  is  worth  observing  that,  even  when  offending 
grievously  in  great  matters  against  the  principle  of  connecting  fresh 
knowledge  with  the  old,  teachers  are  sometimes  driven  to  it  in  smalL 


HERBERT   SPENCER.  461 

From  indefinite  to  definite :  concrete  to  abstract. 

§  22.  2.  "All  development  is  an  advance  from  the 
indefinite  to  the  definite."  I  do  not  feel  very  certain  of  the 
truth  of  this  principle,  or  of  its  application,  if  true.  Of 
course,  a  child's  intellectual  conceptions  are  at  first  vague, 
and  we  should  not  forget  this ;  but  it  is  rather  a  fact  than  a 
principle. 

§  23.  3.  "  Our  lessons  ought  to  start  from  the  concrete, 
and  end  in  the  abstract."  What  Mr.  Spencer  says  under 
this  head  well  deserves  the  attention  of  all  teachers. 
"  General  formulas  which  men  have  devised  to  express 
groups  of  details,  and  which  have  severally  simplified  their 
conceptions  by  uniting  many  facts  into  one  fact,  they  have 
supposed  must  simplify  the  conceptions  of  a  child  also. 
They  have  forgotten  that  a  generalisation  is  simple  only  in 
comparison  with  the  whole  mass  of  particular  truths  it  com- 
prehends ;  that  it  is  more  complex  than  any  one  of  these 
truths  taken  simply ;  that  only,  after  many  of  these  single 
truths  have  been  acquired,  does  the  generalisation  ease  the 
memory  and  help  the  reason ;  and  that,  to  a  mind  not 
possessing  these  single  truths,  it  is  necessarily  a  mystery. 
Thus,  confounding  two  kinds  of  simplification,  teachers  have 
constantly  erred  by  setting  out  with  "first  principles,"  a  pro- 
ceeding essentially,  though  not  apparently,  at  variance  with 
the  primary   rule    [of  proceeding  from  the  simple  to  the 

They  find  that  it  is  better  for  boys  to  see  that  lignum  is  like  regnum, 
tnd  laudare  like  amare,  than  simply  to  learn  that  lignum  is  of  tht 
Second  Declension,  and  laudare  of  the  First  Conjugation.  If  boys  had 
to  learn  by  a  mere  effort  of  memory  the  particular  declension  or  con- 
jugation of  Latin  words  before  they  were  taught  anything  about  declen- 
sions and  conjugations,  this  would  be  as  sensible  as  the  method  adopted 
in  some  other  instances,  and  the  teachers  might  urge,  as  usual,  that  the 
information  would  come  in  useful  afterwards- 
32 


462  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

The  Individual  and  the  Race.   Empirical  beginning. 

complex]^  which  implies  that  the  mind  should  be  introduced 
to  principles  through  the  medium  of  examples,  and  so  should 
be  led  from  the  particular  to  the  general,  from  the  concrete 
to  the  abstract."  In  conformity  with  this  principle,  Pest.i- 
lozzi  made  the  actual  counting  of  things  precede  the  teach- 
ing of  abstract  rules  in  arithmetic.  Basedow  introduced 
weights  and  measures  into  the  school,  and  Mr.  Spencer 
describes  some  exercise  in  cutting  out  geometrical  figures  in 
cardboard,  as  a  preparation  for  geometry.  The  difficulty 
about  such  instruction  is  that  it  requires  apparatus,  and 
apparatus  is  apt  to  get  lost  or  out  of  order.  But  if  apparatus 
is  good  for  anything  at  all,  it  is  worth  a  little  trouble. 
There  is  a  tendency  in  the  minds  of  many  teachers  to 
depreciate  "mechanical  appliances."  Even  a  decent 
black-board  is  not  always  to  be  found  in  our  higher  schools. 
But,  though  such  appliances  will  not  enable  a  bad  master 
to  teach  well,  nevertheless,  other  things  being  equal,  the 
master  will  teach  better  with  them  than  without  them. 
There  is  little  credit  due  to  him  for  managing  to  dispense 
with  apparatus.  An  author  might  as  well  pride  himself  on 
being  saving  in  pens  and  paper. 

§  24.  4.  "The  genesis  of  knowledge  in  the  individual 
must  follow  the  same  course  as  the  genesis  of  knowledge 
in  the  race."  This  is  the  thesis  on  which  I  have  no  opinion 
to  offer. 

§  25.  5.  From  the  above  principle  Mr.  Spencer  infers 
that  every  study  should  have  a  purely  experimental  intro- 
duction, thus  proceeding  through  an  empirical  stage  to  a 
rational. 

§  26.  6.  A  second  conclusion  which  Mr.  Spencer  draws 
is  that,  in  education,  the  process  of  self-development  should 
be  encouraged  to  the  utmost.     Children  should  be  led  to 


HERBERT  SPENCER.  463 

Against  "telling."    Effect  of  bad  teaching. 

make  their  own  investigations,  and  to  draw  their  own 
inferences.  They  should  be  told  as  little  as  possible, 
and  induced  to  discover  as  much  as  possible.  I  quite 
agree  with  Mr.  Spencer  that  this  principle  cannot  be  too 
strenuously  insisted  on,  though  it  obviously  demands  a  high 
amount  of  intelligence  in  the  teacher.  But  if  education  is 
to  be  a  training  of  the  faculties,  if  it  is  to  prepare  the  pupil 
to  teach  himself,  something  more  is  needed  than  simply  to 
pour  in  knowledge  and  make  the  pupil  reproduce  it.  The 
receptive  and  reproductive  faculties  form  but  a  small  portion 
of  a  child's  powers,  and  yet  the  only  portion  which  many 
schoolmasters  seek  to  cultivate.  It  is  indeed,  not  easy  to 
get  beyond  this  point ;  but  the  impediment  is  in  us,  not  in 
the  children.  "  Who  can  watch,"  ask  Mr.  Spencer,  "  the 
ceaseless  observation,  and  inquiry,  and  inference,  going  on 
in  a  child's  mind,  or  listen  to  its  acute  remarks  in  matters 
within  the  range  of  its  faculties,  without  perceiving  that 
these  powers  it  manifests,  if  brought  to  bear  systematically 
upon  studies  within  the  same  range,  would  readily  master 
them  without  help  ?  This  need  for  perpetual  telling  results 
from  our  stupidity,  not  from  the  child's.  We  drag  it  away 
from  the  facts  in  which  it  is  interested,  and  which  it  is 
actively  assimilating  of  itself  We  put  before  it  facts  far 
too  complex  for  it  to  understand,  and  therefore  distasteful 
to  it.  Finding  that  it  will  not  voluntarily  acquire  these 
facts,  we  thrust  them  into  its  mind  by  force  of  threats  and 
punishment.  By  thus  denying  the  knowledge  it  craves, 
jind  cramming  it  with  knowledge  it  cannot  digest,  we 
produce  a  morbid  state  of  its  faculties,  and  a  consequent 
disgust  for  knowledge  in  general.  And  when,  as  a  result, 
partly  of  the  stolid  indolence  we  have  brought  on,  and 
partly  of  still-continued  unfitness  in  its  studies,  the  child 


464  HERBERT   SPENCER. 

Learning  should  be  pleasurable. 

can  understand  nothing  without  explanation,  and  becomes 
a  mere  passive  recipient  of  our  instruction,  we  infer  that 
education  must  necessarily  be  carried  on  thus.  Having 
by  our  method  induced  helplessness,  we  make  the  helpless- 
ness a  reason  for  our  method."  It  is,  of  course,  much 
easier  to  point  out  defects  than  to  remedy  them  :  but  every 
one  who  has  observed  the  usual  indifference  of  schoolboys 
to  their  work,  and  the  waste  of  time  consequent  on  their 
inattention  or  only  half-hearted  attention  to  the  matter 
before  them,  and  then  thinks  of  the  eagerness  with  which 
the  same  boys  throw  themselves  into  the  pursuits  of  their 
play-hours,  will  feel  a  desire  to  get  at  the  cause  of  this 
difference ;  and,  perhaps,  it  may  seem  to  him  partly 
accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  their  school-work  makes  a 
monotonous  demand  on  a  single  faculty — the  memory. 

§  27.  7.  This  brings  me  to  the  last  of  Mr.  Spencer's 
principles  of  intellectual  education.  Instruction  must 
excite  the  interest  of  the  pupils  and  therefore  be  pleasurable 
to  them.  "  Nature  has  made  the  healthful  exercise  of  our 
faculties  both  of  mind  and  body  pleasurable.  It  is  true 
that  some  of  the  highest  mental  powers  as  yet  but  little 
developed  in  the  race,  and  congenitally  possessed  in  any 
considerable  degree  only  by  the  most  advanced,  are  indis- 
posed to  the  amount  of  exertion  required  of  them.  But 
these,  in  virtue  of  their  very  complexity  will  in  a  normal 
course  of  culture  come  last  into  exercise,  and  will,  therefore, 
have  no  demands  made  on  them  until  the  pupil  has  arrived 
at  an  age  when  ulterior  motives  can  be  brought  into  play, 
and  an  indirect  pleasure  made  to  counterbalance  a  direct 
displeasure.  With  all  faculties  lower  than  these,  however, 
the  immediate  gratification  consequent  on  activity  is  the 
normal  stimulus,   and  under  good   management  the  only 


HERBERT   SPENCER.  465 

Can  learning  be  made  interesting  ? 

needful  stimulus.  When  we  have  to  fall  back  on  some 
other,  we  must  take  the  fact  as  evidence  that  we  are  on  the 
wrong  track.  Experience  is  daily  showing  with  greater 
clearness  that  there  is  always  a  method  to  be  found  produc- 
tive of  interest — even  of  delight — and  it  ever  turns  out  that 
this  is  the  method  proved  by  all  other  tests  to  be  the  right  one." 

§  28.  As  far  as  I  have  had  the  means  of  judging,  I  have 
found  that  the  majority  of  teachers  reject  this  principle. 
If  you  ask  them  why,  most  of  them  will  tell  you  that  it  is 
impossible  to  make  school-work  interesting  to  children.  A 
large  number  also  hold  that  it  is  not  desirable.  Let  us 
consider  these  two  points  separately. 

Of  course,  if  it  is  not  possible  to  get  children  to  take 
interest  in  anything  they  could  be  taught  in  school,  there 
is  an  end  of  the  matter.  But  no  one  really  goes  as  far  as 
this.  Every  teacher  finds  that  some  of  the  things  boys  are 
taught  they  like  better  than  others,  and  perhaps  that  one 
boy  takes  to  one  subject  and  another  to  another;  and  he 
also  finds,  both  of  classes  and  individuals,  that  they  always 
get  on  best  with  what  they  like  best.  The  utmost  that  can 
be  maintained  is,  then,  that  some  subjects  which  must  be 
taught  will  not  interest  the  majority  of  the  learners.  And 
if  it  be  once  admitted  that  it  is  desirable  to  make  learning 
pleasant  and  interesting  to  our  pupils,  this  principle  will 
influence  us  to  some  extent  in  the  subjects  we  select  for 
teaching,  and  still  more  in  the  methods  by  which  we 
endeavour  to  teach  them,  I  say  we  shall  be  guided  to 
iotm  extent  in  the  selection  of  subjects.  There  are  theorists 
«vho  assert  that  nature  gives  to  young  minds  a  craving  for 
their  proper  aliment,  so  that  they  should  be  taught  only 
what  they  show  an  inclination  for.  But  surely  our  natural 
inclinations  in  this  matter,  as  in  others,  are  neither  on  the 


466  HERBERT   SPENCER. 

Apathy  from  bad  teaching. 

one  hand  to  be  ignored,  nor  on  the  other  to  be  uncontrolled 
by  such  motives  as  our  reason  dictates  to  us.  We  at  leng))i 
perceive  this  in  the  physical  nurture  of  our  children.  Locke 
directs  that  children  are  to  have  very  little  sugar  or  salt. 
"Sweetmeats  of  all  kinds  are  to  be  avoided,"  says  he, 
"  which,  whether  they  do  more  harm  to  the  maker  or  eater 
is  not  easy  to  tell."  (Ed.  §  20.)  Now,  however,  doctors 
have  found  out  that  young  people's  taste  for  sweets  should 
in  moderation  be  gratified,  that  they  require  sugar  as  much 
as  they  require  any  other  kind  of  nutriment.  But  no  one 
would  think  of  feeding  his  children  entirely  on  sweetmeats, 
or  even  of  letting  them  have  an  unlimited  supply  of  plum 
puddings  and  hardbake.  If  we  follow  out  this  analogy  in 
nourishing  the  mind,  we  shall,  to  some  extent,  gratify  a 
child's  taste  for  "stories,"  whilst  we  also  provide  a  large 
amount  of  more  solid  fare.  But  although  we  should 
certainly  not  ignore  our  children's  likes  and  dislikes  in 
learning,  or  in  anything  else,  it  is  easy  to  attach  too  much 
importance  to  them.  Dislike  very  often  proceeds  from 
mere  want  of  insight  into  the  subject.  When  a  boy  has 
"done  "  the  First  Book  of  Euclid  without  knowing  how  to 
judge  of  the  size  of  an  angle,  or  the  Second  Book  without 
forming  any  conception  of  a  rectangle,  no  one  can  be  sur- 
prised at  his  not  liking  Euclid.  And  then  the  failure  which 
is  really  due  to  bad  teaching  is  attributed  by  the  master 
to  the  stupidity  of  his  pupil,  and  by  the  pupil  to  the 
dulness  of  the  subject.  If  masters  really  desired  to  make 
learning  a  pleasure  to  their  pupils,  I  think  they  would  find 
that  much  might  be  done  to  effect  this  without  any  alteration 
in  the  subjects  taught. 

But  the  present  dulness  of  school-work  is  not  without 
its  defenders.     They  insist  on  the  importance  of  breaking 


HERBERT  SPENCER.  467 

Should  learning  be  made  interesting  ? 

in  the  mind  to  hard  work.  This  can  only  be  done,  they 
say,  by  tasks  which  are  repulsive  to  it.  The  schoolboy  does 
not  like,  and  ought  not  to  like,  learning  Latin  grammar  any 
more  than  the  colt  should  find  pleasure  in  running  round  in 
a  circle :  the  very  fact  that  these  things  are  not  pleasant 
makes  them  beneficial.  Perhaps  a  certain  amount  of  such 
tiaining  may  train  down  the  mind  and  qualify  it  for  some 
drudgery  from  which  it  might  otherwise  revolt ;  but  if  this 
result  is  attained,  it  is  attained  at  the  sacrifice  of  the  intel- 
lectual activity  which  is  necessary  for  any  higher  function. 
As  Carlyle  says,  {Latter- Day  PP.,  No.  iij),  when  speaking 
of  routine  work  generally,  you  want  notliing  but  a  sorry  nag 
to  draw  your  sand-cart;  your  high-spirited  Arab  will  be 
dangerous  in  such  a  capacity.  But  who  would  advocate 
for  all  colts  a  training  which  should  render  them  fit  for 
nothing  but  such  humble  toil  ?  I  shall  say  more  about  this 
further  on  (f.  pp.  472^);  here  I  will  merely  express  my  strong 
conviction  that  boys'  minds  are  frequently  dwarfed,  and 
their  interest  in  intellectual  pursuits  blighted,  by  the  practice 
of  employing  the  first  years  of  their  school-life  in  learning 
by  heart  things  which  it  is  quite  impossible  for  them  to 
understand  or  care  for.  Teachers  set  out  by  assuming  that 
little  boys  cannot  understand  anything,  and  that  all  we  can 
do  with  them  is  to  keep  them  quiet  and  cram  them  with 
forms  which  will  come  in  useful  at  a  later  age.  When  the 
I  <oys  have  been  taught  on  this  system  for  two  or  three  years, 
I  heir  teacher  complains  that  they  are  stupid  and  inactentive, 
and  that  so  long  as  they  can  say  a  thing  by  heart  they  never 
trouble  themselves  to  understand  it  In  other  words,  the 
teacher  grumbles  at  them  fordoing  precisely  what  they  have 
been  taught  to  do,  for  repeating  words  without  any  thought 
of  their  meaning. 


468  HERBERT   SPENCER. 

Difference  between  theory  and  practice. 

§  29.  In  this  very  important  matter  I  am  fully  alive  to  the 
difference  between  theory  and  practice.  It  is  so  easy  to 
recommend  that  boys  should  be  got  to  understand  and  take 
an  interest  in  their  work — so  difficult  to  carry  out  the 
recommendation  !  Grown  people  can  hardly  conceive  that 
words  which  have  in  their  minds  been  associated  with 
familiar  ideas  from  time  immemorial,  are  mere  sounds  in 
the  mouths  of  their  pupils.  The  teacher  thinks  he  is 
beginning  at  the  beginning  if  he  says  that  a  transitive  verb 
must  govern  an  accusative,  or  that  all  the  angles  of  a  square 
are  right  angles.  He  gives  his  pupils  credit  for  innate  ideas 
up  to  this  point,  at  all  events,  and  advancing  on  this 
supposition  he  finds  that  he  can  get  nothing  out  of  them  but 
memory-work ;  so  he  insists  on  this  that  his  time  and  theirs 
may  seem  not  to  be  wholly  wasted.  The  great  difficulty  of 
teaching  well,,  however,  is  after  all  but  a  poor  excuse  for 
contentedly  teaching  badly,  and  it  would  be  a  great  step  in 
advance  if  teachers  in  general  were  as  dissatisfied  with 
themselves  as  they  usually  are  with  their  pupils.* 

*  Mr.  Spencer  and  Professor  Tyndall  appeal  to  the  results  of  expe- 
rience as  justifying  a  more  rational  method  of  teaching.  Speaking  of 
geometrical  deductions,  Mr.  Spencer  says  :  "  It  has  repeatedly  occurred 
that  those  who  have  been  s^tupehed  by  the  ordinary  school-drill — by  its 
abstract  formulas,  its  wearisome  tasks,  its  cramming — have  suddenly  had 
their  intellects  roused  by  thus  ceasing  to  make  them  passive  recipients, 
and  inducing  them  to  become  active  discoverers.  The  discouragement 
caused  by  bad  teaching  having  been  diminished  by  a  little  sympathy, 
and  sufficient  perseverance  excited  to  achieve  a  first  success,  there  arises 
a  revolution  of  feeling  affecting  the  whole  nature.  They  no  longer  find 
themselves  incompetent ;  they  too  can  do  something.  And  gradually, 
as  success  follows  success,  the  incubus  of  despair  disappears,  and  they 
attack  the  difficulties  of  their  other  studies  with  a  courage  insuring 
conquest." 


HERBERT   SPENCER.  469 

Importance  of  H.  S.'s  work. 

§  30.  I  do  not  purpose  following  Mr.  Spencer  through 
his  chapters  on  moral  and  physical  education.  In  practice 
1  find  I  can  draw  no  line  between  moral  and  religious 
education  ;  so  the  discussion  of  one  without  the  other  has 
not  for  me  much  interest.  Mr.  Spencer  has  some  ver)' 
valuable  remarks  on  physical  education  which  I  couJd  do 
little  more  than  extract,  and  I  have  already  made  too  many 
quotations  from  a  work  which  will  be  in  the  hands  of  most 
of  my  readers. 

§  31.  Mr.  Spencer  differs  very  widely  from  the  great  body 
of  our  schoolmasters.  I  have  ventured  in  turn  to  differ  on 
some  points  from  Mr.  Spencer ;  but  I  have  failed  to  give 
any  adequate  notion  of  the  work  I  have  been  discussing  if 
the  reader  has  not  perceived  that  it  is  not  only  one  of  the 
most  readable,  but  also  one  of  the  most  important  books  on 
education  .u  the  English  language. 


XX. 

THOUGHTS  AND  SUGGESTIONS. 


^  I.  One  of  the  great  wants  of  middle-class  education  at 
present,  is  an  ideal  to  work  towards.  Our  old  public 
schools  have  such  an  ideal.  The  model  public  school-man 
is  a  gentleman  who  is  an  elegant  Latin  and  Greek  scholar. 
True,  this  may  not  be  a  very  good  ideal,  and  some  of  our 
ablest  men,  both  literary  and  scientific,  are  profoundly 
dissatisfied  with  it.  But,  so  long  as  it  is  maintained,  all 
questions  of  reform  are  comparatively  simple.  In  middle- 
class  schools,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  terminus  ad 
quern.  A  number  of  boys  are  got  together,  and  the  question 
arises,  not  simply  how  to  teach,  but  what  to  teach.  Where 
the  marstes  are  not  university  men,  they  are,  it  may  be,  not 
men  of  broad  views  or  high  culture.  Of  course  no  one  will 
suppose  me  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  a  great  number  of 
teachers  who  have  never  been  at  a  university,  are  both 
enlightened  and  highly  cultivated ;  and  also  that  many 
teachers  who  have  taken  degrees,  even  in  honours,  are 
neither.  But,  speaking  broadly  of  the  two  classes,  I  may 
fairly  assume  that  the  non-university  men  are  inferior  in 
these  respects  to  the  graduates.  If  not,  our  universities 
should  be  reformed  on  Carlyle's  "  live-coal "  principle  with- 
out fuither  loss  of  time.      Many   non-university  masters 


THOUGHTS  AND  SUGGESTIONS.  47 1 

Want  of  an  ideal. 

have  been  engaged  in  teaching  ever  since  they  were  boys 
themselves,  and  teaching  is  a  very  narrowing  occupation. 
They  are  apt  therefore  to  be  careless  of  general  principles, 
and  to  aim  merely  at  storing  their  pupils'  memory  with 
facts — facts  about  language,  about  history,  about  geography, 
without  troubling  themselves  to  consider  what  is  and  what 
is  not  worth  knowing,  or  what  faculties  the  boys  have,  and 
how  they  should  be  developed.  The  consequence  is  their 
boys  get  up,  for  the  purpose  of  forgetting  with  all  convenient 
speed,  quantities  of  details  about  as  instructive  and  enter- 
taining as  the  Propria  qua  maribus,  such  as  the  division  of 
England  under  the  Heptarchy,  the  battles  in  the  wars  of  the 
Roses,  and  lists  of  geographical  names.  Where  the  masters 
are  university  men,  they  have  rather  a  contempt  for  this  kind 
of  cramming,  which  makes  them  do  it  badly,  if  they  attempt 
it  at  all ;  but  they  are  driven  to  this  teaching  in  many  cases 
because  they  do  not  know  what  to  substitute  in  its  place. 
In  their  own  school-education  they  were  taught  classics 
and  mathematics  and  nothing  else.  Their  pupil?  are  too 
young  to  have  much  capacity  for  mathematics,  and  they 
will  leave  school  too  soon  to  get  any  sound  knov/ledge  of 
classics ;  so  the  strength  of  the  teaching  ought  clearly  not 
to  be  thrown  into  these  subjects.  But  the  master  really 
knows  no  other.  He  soon  finds  that  he  is  not  much  his 
pupils'  superior  in  acquaintance  with  the  theory  of  the 
English  language  or  with  history  and  geography.  There 
are  cot  many  men  with  sufficient  strength  of  will  to  study 
whiLt  their  energies  are  taxed  by  teaching ;  and  standard 
hooks  are  not  always  within  reach  :  so  the  master  is  forced 
to  content  himself  with  hearing  lessons  in  a  perfunctory 
way  out  of  dreary  school-books.  Hence  it  comes  to  pass 
that  he  goes  on  teaching  subjects  of  which  he  himself  is 


472  THOUGHTS  AND   SUGGESTIONS. 

Get  pupils  to  work  hard. 

ignorant,  subjects,  too,  of  which  he  does  not  recognise  the 
importance,  with  an  enlightened  disbelief  in  his  own  mel  hod 
of  tuition.  He  finds  it  uphill  work,  to  be  sure,  and  is 
c(jnscious  that  his  pupils  do  not  get  on,  however  hard  lie 
may  try  to  drive  them ;  but  he  never  hoped  for  success  in 
his  teaching,  so  the  want  of  it  does  not  distress  him.  I 
may  be  suspected  of  caricature,  but  not,  1  think,  by 
university  men  who  have  themselves  had  to  teach  anything 
besides  classics  and  mathematics. 

§  2.  If  there  is  any  truth  in  what  I  have  been  saying, 
school-teaching,  in  subjects  other  than  classics  and  mathe- 
matics (which  I  am  not  now  considering),  is  very  commonly 
a  failure.  And  a  failure  it  must  remain  until  boys  can  be 
got  to  work  with  a  will,  in  other  words,  to  feel  interest  in 
the  subject  taught.  I  know  there  is  a  strong  prejudice  in 
some  people's  minds  against  the  notion  of  making  learning 
pleasant.  They  remind  us  that  school  should  be  a  pre- 
paration for  after-life.  After-life  will  bring  with  it  an 
immense  amount  of  drudgery.  If,  they  say,  things  at 
school  are  made  too  easy  and  pleasant  (words,  by  the  way, 
very  often  and  very  erroneously  confounded),  school  will 
cease  to  give  the  proper  discipline  :  boys  will  be  turned  out 
not  knowing  what  hard  work  is,  which,  after  all,  is  the  most 
important  lesson  that  can  be  taught  them.  In  these  views 
I  sincerely  concur,  so  far  as  this  at  least,  that  we  want 
boys  to  work  hard,  and  vigorously  to  go  through  the 
necessary  drudgery,  i.e.,  labour  in  itself  disagreeable.  But 
this  result  is  not  attained  by  such  a  system  as  I  have 
described.  Boys  do  not  learn  to  work  hard,  but  in  a  dull 
stupid  way,  with  most  of  their  faculties  lying  dormant,  and 
though  they  are  put  through  a  vast  quantity  of  drudgery, 
they  seem  as  incapable  of  throwing  any  energy  into  it  as 


THOUGHTS  AND  SUGGESTIONS.  473 

For  this  arouse  interest.    Wordsworth. 

prisoners  on  the  tread-mill.  I  think  we  shall  find  on 
consideration,  that  no  one  succeeds  in  any  occupation 
unless  that  occupation  is  interesting,  either  in  itself  or  from 
some  object  that  is  to  be  obtained  by  means  of  it.  Only 
when  such  an  interest  is  aroused  is  energy  possible.  No 
one  will  deny  that,  as  a  rule,  the  most  successful  men  are 
those  for  whom  their  employment  has  the  greatest  attractions. 
We  should  be  sorry  to  give  ourselves  up  to  the  treatment 
of  a  doctor  who  thought  the  study  of  disease  mere  drudgery, 
or  a  dentist  who  felt  a  strong  repugnance  to  operating  on 
teeth.  No  doubt  the  successful  man  in  every  pursuit  has 
to  go  through  a  great  deal  of  drudgery,  but  he  has  a 
general  interest  in  the  subject,  which  extends,  partially  at 
least,  to  its  most  wearisome  details;  his  energy,  too,  is 
excited  by  the  desire  of  what  the  drudgery  will  gain  for 
him.* 

*  On  this  subject  I  can  quote  the  authority  of  a  great  observer  of  the 
mind — no  less  a  man,  indeed,  than  Wordsworth.  He  speaks  of  the 
"grand  elementary  principal  of  pleasure,  by  which  man  knows,  and 
feels,  and  lives,  and  moves.  We  have  no  sympathy,"  he  continues, 
"  but  what  is  propagated  by  pleasure — I  would  not  be  misunderstood — 
but  wherever  we  sympathise  with  pain,  it  will  be  found  that  the 
sympathy  is  produced  and  carried  on  by  subtile  combinations  with 
pleasure.  We  have  no  knowledge,  that  is,  no  general  principles  drawn 
from  the  comtemplation  of  particular  facts,  but  what  has  been  built  up 
by  pleasure,  and  exists  in  us  by  pleasure  alone.  The  man  of  science, 
the  chemist,  and  mathematician,  whatever  difficulties  and  disgusts  they 
may  have  to  struggle  with,  know  and  feel  this.  However  painful  may 
Ihj  the  objects  with  which  the  anatomist's  knowledge  may  be  connected,  he 
feels  that  his  knowledge  is  pleasure,  and  when  he  has  no  pleasure  he  has 
no  knowledge" — Preface  to  second  edition  of  Lyrical  Ballads.  So 
Wordsworth  would  have  agreed  with  Tranio  :  {T.  of  Shrew,  j.  I.) 
*'  No  profit  grows  where  is  no  pleasure  ta'en ; 
In  brief,  Sir,  study  what  you  most  affect." 


474  THOUGHTS  AND  SUGGESTIONS. 

Interest  needed  for  activity. 

§  3.  Observe,  that  although  I  would  have  boys  take 
pleasure  in  their  work,  I  regard  the  pleasure  as  a  means, 
not  an  end.  If  it  could  be  proved  that  the  mind  was  best 
trained  by  the  most  repulsive  exercises,  I  should  most 
certainly  enforce  them.  But  I  do  not  think  that  the  mind 
is  benefited  by  galley-slave  labour ;  indeed,  hardly  any  of 
its  faculties  are  capable  of  such  labour.  We  can  compel  a 
boy  to  learn  a  thing  by  heart,  but  we  cannot  compel  him  to 
wish  to  understand  it ;  and  the  intellect  does  not  act 
without  the  will  (v.  supra  p.  193).  Hence,  when  anything 
is  required  which  cannot  be  performed  by  the  memory 
alone,  the  driving  system  utterly  breaks  down ;  and  even 
the  memory,  as  I  hope  to  show  presently,  works  much 
more  effectually  in  matters  about  which  the  mind  feels  an 
interest.  Indeed,  the  mind  without  sympathy  and  interest 
is  like  the  sea-anemone  when  the  tide  is  down,  an  unlovely 
thing,  closed  against  external  influences,  enduring  existence 
as  best  it  can.  But  let  it  find  itself  in  a  more  congenial 
element,  and  it  opens  out  at  once,  shows  altogether  un- 
expected capacities,  and  eagerly  assimilates  all  the  proper 
food  that  comes  within  its  reach.  Our  school  teaching  is 
often  little  better  than  an  attempt  to  get  sea-anemones  to 
flourish  on  dry  land 

§  4.  We  see  then,  that  a  boy,  before  he  can  throw 
energy  into  a  study,  must  find  that  study  interesting  in 
itself^  or  in  its  results. 

Some  subjects,  properly  taught,  are  interesting  in  them- 
selves. 

Some  subjects  may  be  interesting  to  older  and  more 
thoughtful  boys,  from  a  perception  of  their  usefulness. 

All  subjects  may  be  made  interesting  by  emulation. 

§  5.  Hardly   any    effort   is   made   in    some   schools  to 


•  THOUGHTS   AND   SUGGESTIONS.  475 

Teaching  young  children. 

interest  the  younger  children  in  their  work,  and  yet  no 
eifort  can  be,  as  the  Germans  say,  more  "  rewarding." 
The  teacher  of  children  has  this  advantage,  that  his  pupils 
are  never  dull  and  listless,  as  youths  are  apt  to  be.  If  they 
are  not  attending  to  him,  they  very  soon  give  him  notice  of 
it ;  and  if  he  has  the  sense  to  see  that  their  inattention  is 
his  fault,  not  theirs,  this  will  save  him  much  annoyance  and 
them  much  misery.  He  has,  too,  another  advantage,  which 
gives  him  the  power  of  gaining  their  attention — their 
emulation  is  easily  excited.  In  the  Waisenhaus  at  Halle  I 
once  heard  a  class  of  very  young  children,  none  of  them 
much  above  six  years  old,  perform  feats  of  mental  arithmetic 
quite,  as  I  should  have  said,  beyond  their  age,  and  I  well 
remember  the  pretty  eagerness  with  which  each  child  held 
out  a  httle  hand  and  shouted,  "  Mich  1  Bittel"  to  gain  the 
privilege  of  answering. 

§  6.  Then  again,  there  are  many  subjects  in  which 
children  take  an  interest.  Indeed,  all  visible  things, 
especially  animals,  are  much  more  to  them  than  to  us. 
A  child  has  made  acquaintance  with  all  the  animals  in  the 
neighbourhood,  and  can  tell  you  much  more  about  the 
house  and  its  surroundings  than  you  know  yourself.  But 
all  this  knowledge  and  interest  you  would  wish  forgotten 
directly  he  comes  into  school.  Reading,  writing,  and 
figures  are  taught  in  the  driest  manner.  The  two  first  are 
in  themselves  not  uninteresting  to  the  child,  as  he  has 
something  to  do,  and  young  people  are  much  more  ready 
lo  do  anything  than  to  learn  anything.  But  when  lessons 
are  given  the  child  to  learn,  they  are  not  about  things 
concerning  which  he  has  ideas  and  feels  an  interest,  but 
you  teach  him  mere  sounds — e.g.,  that  Alfred  (to  him  only 
a  name)  came  to  the  throne  in  871,  though  he  has  no 


476  THOUGHTS   AND   SUGGESTIONS. 

Value  of  pictures. 

notion  what  the  throne  is,  or  what  871  means.  The  child 
learns  the  lesson  with  much  trouble  and  small  profit, 
bearing  the  infliction  with  what  patience  he  can,  till  he 
escapes  out  of  school  and  begins  to  learn  much  faster  on  a 
very  different  system. 

§  7.  We  cannot  often  introduce  into  the  school  the  thing, 
much  less  the  animal,  which  children  would  care  to  see, 
but  we  can  introduce  what  will  please  them  as  well,  in 
some  cases  even  better,  viz.,  good  pictures.  A  teacher 
who  could  draw  boldly  on  the  blackboard,  would  have  no 
difficulty  in  arresting  the  children's  attention.  But,  at 
present,  few  can  do  this,  and  pictures  must  be  provided. 
A  good  deal  has  been  done  of  late  years  in  the  way  of 
illustrating  children's  books,  and  even  childhood  must  be 
the  happier  for  such  pictures  as  those  of  Tenniel  and 
Harrison  Weir.  But  it  seems  well  understood  that  these 
gentlemen  are  incapable  of  doing  anything  for  children 
beyond  affording  them  innocent  amusement,  and  we  should 
be  as  much  surprised  at  seeing  their  works  introduced  into 
that  region  of  asceticism,  the  English  school-room,  as  if  we 
ran  across  one  of  Raphael's  Madonnas  in  a  Baptist  chapel.* 

§  8.  I  had  the  good  fortune,  many  years  ago,  to  be 
present  at  the  lessons  given  by  a  very  excellent  teacher  to 
the  youngest  class,  consisting  both  of  boys  and  girls,  at  the 
first  Biirger-schule  of  Leipzig.  In  Saxony  the  schooling 
which  the  state  demands  for  each  child,  begins  at  six  years 

*  This  remark,  I  am  glad  to  say,  is  much  less  true  now  ( 1 890)  than  when 
fiist  published.  Indeed  some  purveyors  of  books  for  children  are  getting 
to  rely  too  exclusively  on  the  pictures,  just  as  I  have  noticed  that  an 
organ-grinder  with  a  monkey  seldom  or  never  has  a  good  organ.  Of 
large  pictures  for  class  teaching,  some  of  the  best  I  have  seen  (both  fot 
history  and  natural  history)  are  published  by  the  S.P.C.K. 


THOUGHTS  AND  SUGGESTIONS.  477 

Dr.  Vater  at  Leipzig. 

old,  and  lasts  till  fourteen.  These  children  were,  therefore, 
between  six  and  seven.  In  one  year,  a  certain  Dr.  Vater 
taught  them  to  read,  write,  and  reckon.  His  method  of 
teaching  was  as  follows  : — Each  child  had  a  book  with 
pictures  of  objects,  such  as  a  hat,  a  slate,  &c.  Under  the 
picture  was  the  name  of  the  object  in  printing  and  writing 
characters,  and  also  a  couplet  about  the  object  The 
children  having  opened  their  books,  and  found  the  picture 
of  a  hat,  the  teacher  showed  them  a  hat,  and  told  them  a 
tale  connected  with  one.  He  then  asked  the  children 
questions  about  his  story,  and  about  the  hat  he  had  in  his 
hand — What  was  the  colour  of  it  ?  &c.^  He  then  drew  a 
hat  on  the  blackboard,  and  made  the  children  copy  it  on 
their  slates.  Next  he  wrote  the  word  "  hat "  and  told  them 
that  for  people  who  could  read  this  did  as  well  as  the 
picture.  The  children  then  copied  the  word  on  their 
slates.  The  teacher  proceeded  to  analyse  the  word  "  hat, 
{hut)."  "  It  is  made  up,"  said  he,  •'  of  three  sounds,  the 
most  important  of  which  is  the  a  (u),  which  comes  in  the 
middle."  In  all  cases  the  vowel  sound  was  first  ascertained 
in  every  syllable,  and  then  was  given  an  approximation  to 
consonantal  sounds  before  and  after.  The  couplet  was  now 
read  by  the  teacher,  and  the  children  repeated  it  after  him. 
In  this  way  the  book  had  to  be  worked  over  and  over  till 
the  children  were  perfectly  familiar  with  everything  in  it. 
They  had  been  already  six  months  thus  employed  when  I 
visited  the  school,  and  knew  the  book  pretty  thoroughly. 
I'd  lest  their  knowledge,  Dr.  Vater  first  wrote  a  number  of 
capitals  at  random  on  the  board,  and  called  out  a  boy  to 
tell  him  words  having  these  capitals  as  initials.  This  boy 
had  to  call  out  a  girl  to  do  something  of  tLe  kind,  she  a 
boy,  and  so  forth.  Everything  wais  done  very  smartly,  both 
33 


478  THOUGHTS  AND   SUGGESTIONS. 

Dr.  Vogel  and  Dr.  Vater. 

by  master  and  children.  The  best  proof  I  saw  of  their 
accuracy  and  quickness  was  this  :  the  master  traced  words 
from  the  book  very  rapidly  with  a  stick  on  the  blackboard, 
and  the  children  always  called  out  the  right  word,  though  I 
could  not  follow  him.  He  also  wrote  with  chalk  words 
which  the  children  had  never  seen,  and  made  them  name 
first  the  vowel  sounds,  then  the  consonantal,  then  combine 
them. 

I  have  been  thus  minute  in  my  description  of  this  lesson, 
because  it  seems  to  me  an  admirable  example  of  the  way 
in  which  children  between  six  and  eight  years  of  age  should 
be  taught.  The  method  (see  Riiegg's  Fddagogik,  p.  360 ; 
also  Die  Nortnalwortertneihode,  published  by  Orell,  Fiissli, 
Zurich,  1876),  was  arranged  and  the  book  prepared  by  the 
late  Dr.  Vogel,  who  was  then  Director  of  the  school.  Its 
merits,  as  its  author  pointed  out  to  me,  are : — i.  That  it 
connects  the  instruction  with  objects  of  which  the  child 
has  already  an  idea  in  his  mind,  and  so  associates  new 
knowledge  with  old ;  2.  That  it  gives  the  children  plenty 
to  do  as  well  as  to  learn,  a  point  on  which  the  Doctor  was 
very  emphatic ;  3.  That  it  makes  the  children  go  over  the 
same  matter  in  various  ways  till  they  have  learnt  a  Utile 
thoroughly^  and  then  applies  their  knowledge  to  the  acquire- 
ment of  more.  Here  the  Doctor  seems  to  have  followed 
Jacotot.  But  though  the  method  was  no  doubt  a  good 
one,  I  must  say  its  success  at  Leipzig  was  due  at  least  as 
much  tc  Di  Vater  as  to  Dr.  Vogel,  This  gentleman  had 
been  taking  the  youngest  class  in  this  school  for  twenty 
years,  and,  whether  by  practice  or  natural  talent,  he  had 
acquired  precisely  the  right  manner  for  keeping  children's 
attention.  He  was  energetic  without  bustle  and  excitement, 
and  quiet  without  a  suspicion  of  dulness  or  apathy.     By 


THOUGHTS  AND  SUGGESTIONS.  479 

First  knowledge  of  numbers.    Grub^. 

frequently  changing  the  employment  of  the  class,  and  re- 
quiring smartness  in  everything  that  was  done,  he  kep't 
them  all  on  the  alert.  The  lesson  I  have  described  was 
followed  without  pause  by  one  in  arithmetic,  the  two 
together  occupying  an  hour  and  three  quarters,  and  the 
interest  of  the  children  never  flagged  throughout. 

§  9.  Dr.  Vater's  method  for  arithmetic  I  cannot  now 
recall ;  but  I  do  not  doubt  that,  as  a  German  teacher  who 
had  studied  his  profession,  he  understood  what  English 
teachers  and  pupil-teachers  do  not  understand,  viz.,  how 
children  should  get  their  first  knowledge  of  numbers. 
Pestalozzi  and  Froebel  insisted  that  children  should  learn 
about  numbers  from  things  which  they  actually  counted ; 
and,  according  to  Grube's  method,  which  I  found  in  Ger- 
many over  30  years  ago,  and  which  is  now  extending  to 
the  United  States,  the  whole  of  the  first  year  is  given  to 
the  relations  of  numbers  not  exceeding  ten  (see  Grube's 
Method  by  L.  Seeley,  New  York,  Kellogg,  and  F.  L. 
Soldan's  Grube's  M.,  Chicago).  In  arithmetic  everything 
depends  on  these  relations  becoming  thoroughly  familiar. 
The  decimal  scale  is  possibly  not  so  good  as  the  scale  of 
eight  or  of  twelve,  but  the  human  race  has  adopted  it ;  and 
even  the  French  Revolutionists,  with  all  their  belief  in 
"  reason,"  and  their  hatred  of  the  past,  recoiled  from  any 
attempt  to  change  it.  But  in  accepting  it,  they  endeavoured 
to  remove  anomalies,  and  so  should  we.  Everything  must 
be  based  on  groups  of  ten ;  and  with  children  we  should  do 
well,  as  Mr.  W.  Wooding  suggests,  to  avoid  the  great 
anomaly  in  our  nomenclature,  and  call  the  numbers  between 
ten  and  twenty  {i.e.,  twain-tens  or  two-tens),  "ten-one,  ten 
two,  &c."  Numeration  should  by  a  long  way  precede  any 
kind  of  notation,  and  the  main  truths  about  numbers  should 


48o  THOUGHTS  AND   SUGGESTIONS. 

Measuring  and  weighing*.     Reading-books. 

be  got  at  experimentally  with  counters  or  coins.  In  these 
truths  should  be  included  all  that  we  usually  separate  undei 
the  "  First  Four  Rules,"  and  with  integers  we  may  even  from 
the  first  give  a  clear  conception  of  the  fractional  paits  of 
whole  numbers,  e.g.,  that  one  third  of  6  is  2.* 

Actual  measuring  and  weighing,  besides  actual  counting, 
go  towards  actual  arithmetic  for  children. 

All  this  teaching,  if  conducted  as  Dr.  Vater  would  have 
conducted  it,  would  not  give  children  any  distaste  for 
learning  or  make  them  dread  the  sound  of  the  school  bell. 

§  10.  I  will  suppose  a  child  to  have  passed  through 
such  a  course  as  this  by  the  time  he  is  eight  or  nine  years 
old.  Besides  having  some  clear  notions  of  number  and 
form,  he  can  now  read  and  copy  easy  words.  What  we 
next  want  for  him  is  a  series  of  good  reading-books,  about 
things  in  which  he  takes  an  interest.  The  language 
must  of  course  be  simple,  but  the  matter  so  good  that 
neither  master  nor  pupils  will  be  disgusted  by  its  frequent 
repetition. 

The  first  volume  may  very  well  be  about  animals — dogs, 
horses,  &c.,  of  which  large  pictures  should  be  provided, 
illustrating  the  text.  The  first  cost  of  these  pictures  would 
be  considerable,  but  as  they  would  last  for  years,  the  ex- 
pense to  the  friends  of  each  child  taught  from  them  would 
be  a  mere  trifle. 

§  II.  The  books  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  children 
should  be  well  printed  and  strongly  bound.  In  the  present 
penny-wise  system,  school-books  are  given  out  in  cloth,  and 

*  Tillich's  boxes  of  bricks  (sold  by  the  B'ham  Midland  Educational 
Supply  Company,  and  by  Arnold,  Briggate,  Leeds),  are  very  useful  for 
"  intuitive  "  arithmetic :  for  higher  stages  one  might  say  the  same  01 
W.  Wooding's  "Decimal  Abacus"  with  vertical  wires. 


THOUGHTS  AND  SUGGESTIONS.  48 1 

Respect  for  books.    Grammar.    Reading. 

the  leaves  are  loose  at  the  end  of  a  fortnight,  so  that 
children  get  accustomed  to  their  destruction  and  treat  t  as 
a  matter  of  course.  This  ruins  their  respect  for  books, 
which  is  not  so  unimportant  a  matter  as  it  may  at  firsi 
appear. 

§  12.  After  each  reading  lesson,  which  should  contain 
at  least  one  interesting  anecdote,  there  should  be  columns 
of  all  the  words  which  occurred  for  the  first  time  in  that 
lesson.  These  should  be  arranged  according  to  their 
grammatical  classification,  not  that  the  child  should  be  taught 
grammar,  but  this  order  is  as  good  as  any  other,  and  by  it 
the  child  would  learn  to  observe  certain  differences  in  words 
almost  unconsciously.* 

Here  I  cannot  resist  quoting  an  excellent  remark  from 
Helps's  Brevia  (p.  125).  "We  should  make  the  greatest 
progress  in  art,  science,  politics,  and  morals,  if  we  could 
train  up  our  minds  to  look  straight  and  steadfastly  and 
uninterruptedly  at  the  thing  in  question  that  we  are  ob- 
serving. This  seems  a  very  slight  thing  to  do ;  but  prac- 
tically it  is  hardly  ever  done.  Between  you  and  the  object 
rises  a  mist  of  technicalities,  of  prejudices,  of  previous 
knowledge,  and,  above  all,  of  terrible  familiarity."     Perhaps 

*  The  grammar  question  is  still  a  perplexing  one.  There  are  In- 
spectors who  require  children  (as  I  once  heard  in  a  remote  country 
school)  to  distinguish  "7  kinds  of  adverbs."  Then  we  have  children 
discriminating  after  the  fashion  of  one  of  my  own  pupils,  (I  quote  from 
a  grammar  paper,)  "Parse  it."  "It  is  a  prepreition.  Almost  all 
small  words  are  prepreitions. "  In  such  cases  it  is  very  hard  indeed  to 
find  any  common  ground  for  the  minds  of  the  old  and  the  young.  The 
true  way  I  believe  is  to  lead  the  young  to  make  their  own  observations. 
The  way  is  very  very  slow,  but  it  developes  power.  I  have  lately  seen 
an  interesting  little  book  on  these  lines,  called  Langttage  Work  by  Dr. 
De  Garmo  (Bloomington,  111.,  U.S.A.) 


482  THOUGHTS  AND  SUGGESTIONS. 

Silent  and  Vocal  Reading. 

it  is  this  "  terrible  familiarity  "  that  has  prevented  our  seeing 
till  quite  lately  that  reading  is  the  art  of  getting  meaning 
by  signs  that  appeal  to  the  eye,  not  the  art  of  reporting  to 
otners  the  meaning  we  have  thus  arrived  at.  "Accustoming 
boys  to  read  aloud  what  they  do  not  first  understand,"  says 
Benjamin  Franklin,  "  is  the  cause  of  those  even  set  tones 
so  common  among  readers,  which,  when  they  have  once 
got  a  habit  of  using  [them],  they  find  so  difficult  to  correct ; 
by  which  means,  among  fifty  readers  we  scarcely  find  a 
good  one."  {Essays^  Sk.  of  English  Sch.)  It  seems  to 
have  escaped  even  Franklin's  sagacity  that  reading  aloud  is 
a  different  art  to  the  art  of  reading,  and  a  much  harder  one. 
The  two  should  be  studied  separately,  and  most  time  and 
attention  should  be  given  to  silent  reading,  which  is  by  far 
the  more  important  of  the  two.  Colonel  F.  W.  Parker, 
who  has  successfully  cultivated  the  power  of  "looking 
straight  at"  things,  gives  us  in  his  Talks  on  Teaching 
the  right  rule  for  reading.  "  Changing,"  says  he,  "  the 
beautiful  power  of  expression,  full  of  melody,  harmony,  and 
correct  emphasis  and  inflection,  to  the  slow,  painful,  almost 
agonising  pronunciation  that  we  have  heard  so  many  times 
in  the  school-room,  is  a  terrible  sin  that  we  should  never 
be  guilty  of.  There  is,  indeed,  not  the  slightest  need  of 
changing  a  good  habit  to  a  miserable  one  if  we  would 
follow  the  rule  that  the  child  has  naturally  followed  all  his 
life.  Never  allow  a  child  to  give  a  thought  till  he  gets  it " 
(p.  37).  Now  that  the  existence  of  a  thought  in  children 
is  allowed  for,  we  may  expect  all  sorts  of  improvements. 
Reading,  as  a  means  of  ascertaining  thought,  is  second  only 
to  hearing,  and  this  art  should  be  cultivated  by  giving 
children  books  of  questions  {e.g.^  Horace  Grant's  Arithmetic 


THOUGHTS   AND  SUGGESTIONS.  483 

Memorising  poetry.    Composition. 

for  Young  Children),  and  requiring  the  learner  silently  to 
gel  at  the  question  and  then  give  the  answer  aloud. 

§  13.  Easy  descriptive  and  narrative  poetry  should  be 
learnt  by  heart  at  this  stage.  That  the  children  may  repeat 
it  well,  they  should  get  their  first  notions  of  it  from  the 
master  viva  voce.  According  to  the  usual  plan,  they  get 
it  up  with  false  emphasis  and  false  stops,  and  the  more 
thoroughly  they  have  learnt  the  piece,  the  more  difiSculty 
the  master  has  in  making  them  say  it  properly. 

§  14.  Every  lesson  should  be  worked  over  in  various 
ways.  The  columns  of  words  at  the  end  of  the  reading 
lessons  may  be  printed  with  writing  characters,  and  used 
for  copies.  To  write  an  upright  column  either  of  words  or 
figures  is  an  excellent  exercise  in  neatness.  The  columns 
will  also  be  used  as  spelling  lessons,  and  the  children  may 
be  questioned  about  the  meaning  of  the  words.  The 
poetry,  when  thoroughly  learned,  may  sometimes  be  written 
from  memory.  Sentences  from  the  book  may  be  copied 
either  directly  or  from  the  black-board,  and  afterwards  used 
for  dictation. 

§  15.  Boys  should,  as  soon  as  possible,  be  accustomed  to 
write  out  fables,  or  the  substance  of  other  reading  lessons, 
in  their  "Own  words.  They  may  also  write  descriptions  of 
things  with  which  they  are  familiar,  or  any  event  which  has 
recently  happened,  such  as  a  country  excursion.  Every 
one  feels  the  necessity,  on  grounds  of  practical  utility  at  all 
events,  of  boys  being  taught  to  express  their  thoughts  neatly 
on  paper,  in  good  English  and  with  correct  spelling.  Yet 
this  is  a  point  rarely  reached  before  the  age  of  fifteen  or 
sixteen,  often  never  reached  at  all.  The  reason  is,  that 
written  exercises  must  be  carefully  looked  over  by  the 
master,  01  they  are  done  in  a  slovenly  manner.     Anyone 


484  THOUGHTS  AND  SUGGESTIONS. 

Correcting  exercises.    Three  kinds  of  books. 

who  has  never  taught  in  a  school  will  say,  "  Then  let  the 
master  carefully  look  them  over."  But  the  expenditure  of 
time  and  trouble  this  involves  on  the  master  is  so  great 
that  in  the  end  he  is  pretty  sure  either  to  have  few  exercises 
written,  or  to  neglect  to  look  them  over.  The  only  remedy 
is  for  the  master  not  to  have  many  boys  to  teach,  and  not 
to  be  many  hours  in  school.  Even  then,  unless  he  set 
apart  a  special  time  every  day  for  correcting  exercises,  he  is 
likely  to  find  them  "  increase  upon  him." 

§  16.  The  course  of  reading-books,  accompanied  by 
large  illustrations,  may  go  on  to  many  other  things  which 
the  children  see  around  them,  such  as  trees  and  plants,  and 
so  lead  up  to  instruction  in  natural  history  and  physiology. 
But  in  imparting  all  knowledge  of  this  kind,  we  should  aim, 
not  at  getting  the  children  to  remember  a  number  of  facts, 
but  at  opening  their  eyes,  and  extending  the  range  of  their 
interests. 

§  17.  I  should  suggest,  then,  for  children,  three  books  to 
be  used  concurrently,  viz.j  a  reading  book  about  animals 
and  things,  a  poetry  book,  and  a  prose  narrative  or  ^sop's 
Fables.  With  the  first  commences  a  series  culminating  in 
works  of  science ;  with  the  second,  a  series  that  should 
lead  up  to  Milton  and  Shakespeare ;  the  third  should  be 
succeeded  by  some  of  our  best  writers  in  prose. 

§  18.  But  many  schoolmasters  will  shudder  at  the 
thought  of  a  child's  spending  a  year  or  two  at  school  without 
e\  er  hearing  of  the  Heptarchy  or  Magna  Charta,  and  without 
knowing  the  names  of  the  great  towns  in  any  country  of 
Europe.  I  confess  I  regard  this  ignorance  with  great 
equanimity.  If  the  child,  or  the  youth  even,  takes  no 
interest  in  the  Heptarchy  and  Magna  Charta,  and  knows 
nothing  of  the  towns  but  their  names,  I  think  him  quite  as 


THOUGHTS   AND   SUGGESTIONS.  485 

No  epitomes, 

well  off  without  this  knowledge  as  with  it — perhaps  better, 
as  such  knowledge  turns  the  lad  into  a  '•  wind-bag,"  as 
Carlyle  might  say,  and  gives  him  the  appearance  of  being 
vfell-informed  without  the  reality  But  I  neither  despise 
a  knowledge  of  history  and  geography ;  nor  do  I  think 
thf^t  these  studies  should  be  neglected  for  foreign  languages 
or  science :  and  it  is  because  I  should  wish  a  pupil  of  mine 
to  become,  in  the  end,  thoroughly  conversant  in  history 
and  geography,  that  I  should,  if  possible,  conceal  from  him 
the  existence  of  the  numerous  school  manuals  on  these 
subjects. 

We  will  suppose  that  a  parent  meets  with  a  book  which 
he  thinks  will  be  both  instructive  and  entertaining  to  his 
children.  But  the  book  is  a  large  one,  and  would  take  a 
long  time  to  get  through ;  so  instead  of  reading  any  part 
of  it  to  them  or  letting  them  read  it  for  themselves,  he 
makes  them  learn  by  heart  the  table  of  contents.  The  children 
do  not  find  it  entertaining  ;  they  get  a  horror  of  the  book, 
which  prevents  their  ever  looking  at  it  afterwards,  and  they 
forget  what  they  have  learnt  as  soon  as  they  possibly  can. 
Just  such  is  the  sagacious  plan  adopted  in  teaching  history 
and  geography  in  schools,  and  such  are  the  natural  con- 
sequences. Every  student  knows  that  the  use  of  an  epitome 
is  to  systematise  knowledge,  not  to  communicate  it,  and  yet, 
in  teaching,  we  give  the  epitome  first,  and  allow  it  to  pre- 
cede, or  rather  to  supplant,  the  knowledge  epitomised 
The  children  are  disgusted,  and  no  wonder.  The  subjects, 
indeed,  are  interesting,  but  not  so  the  epitomes.  I  suppose 
if  we  could  see  the  skeletons  of  the  Gunnings,  we  should 
not  find  them  more  fascinating  than  any  other  skeletons.* 

•  Books  for  a  beginner  should  contain  a  little  matter  in  much  space, 


486  THOUGHTS  AND   SUGGESTIONS. 

Ascham,  Bacon,  Goldsmith,  against  them. 

§  19.  The  first  thing  to  be  aimed  at,  then,  is  to  excite 
the  children's  interest.  Even  if  we  thought  of  nothing  but 
the  acquiring  of  information,  this  is  clearly  the  true  method. 


and,  as  they  are  usually  written,  they  contain  much  matter  in  «  little 
space.  Nothing  can  be  truer  than  the  saying  of  Lakanal,  "  L'abrege  est 
le  contraire  de  I'elementaire :  That  which  is  abridged  is  just  the 
opposite  of  that  which  is  elementary."'  When  shall  we  learn  what 
seems  obvious  in  itself  and  what  is  taught  us  by  the  great  authorities  ? 
"Epitome,"  says  Ascham,  "is  good  privately  for  himself  that  dolh 
work  it,  but  ill  commonly  for  all  others  that  use  other  men's  labour 
therein.  A  silly  poor  kind  of  study,  not  unlike  to  the  doing  of  those 
poor  folk  which  neither  till,  nor  sow,  nor  reap  themselves,  but  glean  by 
stealth  upon  other's  grounds.  Such  have  empty  bams  for  dear  years." 
(School  Master,  Book  ij.)  Bacon  says  (De  Aug.,  lib.  vj.,  cap.  iv.), 
"Ad  psedagogicam  quod  attinet  brevissimum  foret  dictu.  .  .  .  lUud 
imprimis  consuluerim  ut  caveatur  a  compendiis :  Not  much  about 
pedagogics.  .  .  .  My  chief  advice  is,  keep  clear  of  compendiums." 
And  yet  "the  table  of  contents"  method  which  I  suggested  in  irony  I  after- 
wards found  proposed  in  all  seriousness  in  an  announcement  of  Dr.  J. 
F.  Bright's  English  History :  ' '  The  marginal  analysis  has  been  collected 
at  the  beginning  of  the  volume  so  as  to  form  an  abstract  of  the  history 
suitable  for  the  use  of  those  who  are  bef.inning  the  study." 

T  would  rather  listen  to  Oliver  Goldsmith  :  "  In  history,  such  stories 
alone  should  be  laid  before  them  as  might  catch  the  imagination  :  in- 
stead of  this,  they  are  too  frequently  obliged  to  toil  through  the  four 
Empires,  as  they  are  called,  where  their  memories  are  burthened  by  a 
number  of  disgusting  names  that  destroy  all  their  future  relish  for  cur 
best  historians."  (Letter  on  Education  in  the  Bee  :  a  letter  containing 
so  much  new  truth  that  Goldsmith  in  re-publishing  it  had  to  point  o'.il 
that  it  had  appeared  before  Rousseau's  Emile.)  A  modern  authority  on 
education  has  come  to  the  same  conclusion  as  Goldsmith.  "  The  first 
teaching  in  history  will  not  give  dates,  but  will  show  the  learner  men 
and  actions  likely  to  make  an  impression  on  him.  Der  erst e  Geschichts- 
unterricht  wird  nicht  Jahreszahlen  geben,  sondem  eindrucksvolle 
Personen  und  Thaten  vorfiihren."  (L.  Wiese's  Deutsche  BildungsfragCHx 
1S71. 


THOUGHTS  AND  SUGGESTIONS.  487 

Arouse  interest.    Dr.  Arnold's  historical  primer. 

What  are  the  facts  which  we  remember  ?  Those  in  which 
we  feel  an  interest.  If  we  are  told  that  So-and-so  has  met 
with  an  accident,  or  failed  in  business,  we  forget  it  directly, 
unless  we  know  the  person  spoken  of.  Similarly,  if  I  read 
anything  about  Addison  or  Goldsmith,  it  interests  me,  and 
1  remember  it  because  they  are,  so  to  speak,  friends  of 
mine  ;  but  the  same  information  about  Sir  Richard  Black 
more  or  Cumberland  would  not  stay  in  my  head  for  four- 
and-twenty  hours.  So,  again,  we  naturally  retain  anything 
we  learn  about  a  foreign  country  in  which  a  relation  has 
settled,  but  it  would  require  some  little  trouble  to  commit 
to  memory  the  same  facts  about  a  place  in  which  we  had 
no  concern.  All  this  proceeds  from  two  causes.  First, 
that  the  mind  retains  that  in  which  it  takes  an  interest ; 
and,  secondly,  that  one  of  the  principal  helps  to  memory  is 
the  association  of  ideas.  These  were,  no  doubt,  the  ground 
reasons  which  influenced  Dr.  Arnold  in  framing  his  plan  of 
a  child's  first  history  book.  This  book,  he  says,  should  be 
a  picture-book  of  the  memorable  deeds  which  would  best 
appeal  to  the  child's  imagination.  They  should  be  arranged 
in  order  of  time,  but  with  no  other  connection.  The  letter- 
press should  simply,  but  fully,  tell  the  story  of  the  action 
depicted.  These  would  form  starting-points  of  interest. 
The  child  would  be  curious  to  know  more  about  the  great 
men  whose  acquaintance  he  had  made,  and  would  associate 
with  them  the  scenes  of  their  exploits ;  and  thus  we  might 
actually  find  our  children  anxious  to  learn  history  and 
geography '  I  am  sorry  that  even  the  great  authority  of 
Dr.  Arnold  has  not  availed  to  bring  this  method  into  use. 
Such  a  book  would,  of  course,  be  dear.  Bad  pictures  are 
worse  than  none  at  all :  and  Goethe  tells  us  that  his  appre- 
ciation of  Homer  was  for  years  destroyed  by  his  having 


488  THOUGHTS  AND  SUGGESTIONS. 


A  Macaulay,  not  Mangnall,  wanted. 

been  shown,  when  a  child,  absurd  pictures  of  the  Homeric 
heroes.  The  book  would,  therefore,  cost  six  or  eight 
shillings  at  least ;  and  who .  would  give  this  sum  for  an 
account  of  single  actions  of  a  few  great  men,  when  he  might 
buy  the  lives  of  all  great  men,  together  with  ancient  and 
modern  history,  the  names  of  the  planets,  and  a  great 
amount  of  miscellaneous  information,  all  for  a  shilling  in 
"  Mangnall's  Questions  "  ? 

However,  if  the  saving  of  a  few  shillings  is  more  to  be 
thought  of  than  the  best  method  of  instruction,  the  subject 
hardly  deserves  our  serious  consideration. 

§  20.  It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  books  for  the 
young  are  so  seldom  written  by  distinguished  authors.  I 
suppose  that  of  the  three  things  which  the  author  seeks, 
money,  reputation,  influence,  the  first  is  not  often  despised, 
nor  the  last  considered  the  least  valuable.  And  yet  both 
money  and  influence  are  more  certainly  gained  by  a  good 
book  for  the  young  than  by  any  other.  The  influence 
of  "  Tom  Brown,"  however  different  in  kind,  is  probably 
not  smaller  in  amount  than  that  of  "  Sartor  Resartus." 

§  21.  What  we  want  is  a  Macaulay  for  boys,  who  shall 
handle  historical  subjects  with  that  wonderful  art  displayed 
in  the  "Essays," — the  art  of  elaborating  all  the  more  telling 
portions  of  the  subject,  outlining  the  rest,  and  suppressing 
everything  that  does  not  conduce  to  heighten  the  general 
effect.  Some  of  these  essays,  such  as  the  "  Hastings  "  and 
",Qive,"  will  be  read  with  avidity  by  the  elder  boys;  but 
Macaulay  did  not  write  for  children,  and  he  abounds  in 
words  to  them  unintelligible.  Had  he  been  a  married  man, 
we  might  perhaps  have  had  such  a  volume  of  historical 
sketches  for  boys  as  now  we  must  wish  for  in  vain.  But 
tlvere  are  good  story-tellers  left  among  us,  and  we  might 


THOUGHTS  AND  SUGGESTIONS.  489 

Beginnings  in  history  and  geography. 

soon  expect  such  books  as  we  desiderate,  if  it  were  clearly 
understood  what  is  the  right  sort  of  book,  and  if  men  of 
literary  ability  and  experience  would  condescend  to  write 
them. 

§  22.  If,  in  these  latter  days,  "the  individual  withers, 
and  the  world  is  more  and  more,"  we  must  not  expect  our 
children  to  enter  into  this.  Their  sympathy  and  their  imagi- 
nation can  be  aroused,  not  for  nations,  but  for  individuals  ; 
and  this  is  the  reason  why  some  biographies  of  great  men 
should  precede  any  history.  These  should  be  written  after 
Macaulay's  method.  There  should  be  no  attempt  at  com- 
pleteness, but  what  is  most  important  and  interesting  about 
the  man  should  be  narrated  in  detail,  and  the  rest  lightly 
sketched,  or  omitted  altogether.  Painters  understand  this 
principle,  and,  in  taking  a  portrait,  very  often  depict  a  man's 
features  minutely  without  telling  all  the  truth  about  the 
buttons  on  his  waistcoat.  But,  because  in  a  literary  picture 
each  touch  takes  up  additional  space,  writers  seem  to  fear 
that  the  picture  will  be  distorted  unless  every  particular  is 
expanded  or  condensed  in  the  same  ratio. 

§  23.  At  the  risk  of  wearisome  repetition,  I  must  again 
say  that  I  care  as  little  about  driving  "  useful  knowledge  '* 
into  a  boy  as  the  most  ultra  Cambridge  man  could  wish ; 
but  I  want  to  get  the  boy  to  have  wide  sympathies,  and  to 
teach  himself;  and  I  should  therefore  select  the  great  men 
from  very  different  periods  and  countries,  that  his  net  of 
interest  (so  to  speak)  may  be  spread  in  all  waters. 

§  24.  When  we  have  thus  got  our  boys  to  form  the 
acquaintance  of  great  men,  they  will  have  certain  associa- 
tions connected  with  many  towns  and  countries.  Constant 
reference  should  be  made  to  the  map,  and  the  boys'  know- 
ledge and  interest  will  thus  make  settlements  in  different 


490  THOUGHTS  AND  SUGGESTIONS. 

Tales  of  Travelers. 

parts  of  the  globe.  These  may  be  extended  by  a  good 
book  of  travels,  especially  of  voyages  of  discovery.  There 
are  now  many  such  books  suitable  for  the  purpose,  but  I 
am  still  partial  to  a  book  which  has  been  a  delight  to  me 
and  to  my  own  children  from  our  earliest  years  : — Miss 
Hack's  "  Winter  Evenings ;  or,  Tales  of  Travelers " ;  or, 
as  Routledge  now  calls  a  part  of  it,  "  Travels  in  Hot  and 
Cold  Lands."  In  studying  such  travels,  the  map  should, 
of  course,  be  always  in  sight ;  and  outline  maps  may  be 
filled  up  by  the  boys  as  they  learn  about  the  places  in  the 
traveller's  route.  Anyone  who  has  had  the  management  of 
a  school  library  knows  how  popular  "  voyage  and  venture" 
is  with  the  boys  who  have  passed  the  stage  in  which  the 
picture-books  of  animals  were  the  main  attraction.  Captain 
Cook,  Mungo  Park,  and  Admiral  Byron  are  heroes  without 
whom  boyhood  would  be  incomplete ;  but  as  boys  are 
engrossed  by  the  adventures,  and  never  trouble  themselves 
about  the  map,  they  often  remember  the  incidents  without 
knowing  where  they  happened. 

Of  course,  school  geographies  never  mention  such  people 
as  celebrated  travellers  ;  if  they  did,  it  would  be  impossible 
to  give  all  the  principal  geographical  names  in  the  world 
within  the  compass  of  200  pages. 

§  25.  What  might  we  fairly  expect  from  such  a  course 
of  teaching  as  I  have  here  suggested  ? 

At  the  end  of  a  year  and  a  half,  or  two  years,  from  the 
age,  say,  of  nine,  the  boy  would  read  to  himself  intelligently  ; 
he  would  write  fairly ;  he  would  spell  all  common  English 
words  correctly ;  he  would  be  thoroughly  familiar  with  the 
relations  of  all  common  numbers,  that  is,  of  all  numbers 
below  100  ;  he  would  have  had  his  interest  aroused,  or,  to 
speak  more  accurately,  not  stifled  but  increased  in  common 


THOUGHTS  AND  SUGGESTIONS.  49I 

Results  positive  and  negative. 

objects,  such  as  animals,  trees,  and  plants ;  he  would  have 
made  the  acquaintance  of  some  great  men,  and  traced  the 
voyages  of  some  great  travellers;  he  would  be  able  to  say 
by  heart  and  to  write  from  memory  some  of  the  best  simple 
English  poetry,  and  his  ear  would  be  familiar  with  the 
sound  of  good  English  prose.  So  much,  at  least,  on  the 
positive  side.  On  the  negative  there  might  also  be  results 
of  considerable  value.  He  would  nof  have  learned  to  look 
upon  books  and  school-time  as  the  torment  of  his  life,  nor 
have  fallen  into  the  habit  of  giving  them  as  little  of  his 
attention  as  he  could  reconcile  with  immunity  from  the 
cane.  The  benefit  of  the  negative  result  might  outweigh  a 
very  glib  knowledge  of  "  tables  "  and  Latin  Grammar. 


XXI. 

THE  SCHOOLMASTER'S  MORAL  AND 
RELIGIOUS  INFLUENCE. 


§  1.  All  who  are  acquainted  with  the  standard  treatises 
on  the  theory  of  education,  and  also  with  the'  management 
of  schools,  will  have  observed  that  moral  and  religious  train- 
ing occupies  a  larger  and  more  prominent  space  in  theory 
than  in  practice.  On  consideration,  we  shall  find  perhaps 
that  this  might  naturally  be  expected.  Of  course  we  are  all 
agreed  that  morality  is  more  important  than  learning,  and 
masters  who  are  many  of  them  clergymen,  will  hardly  be 
accused  of  under-estimating  the  value  of  religion.  Why 
then,  does  not  moral  and  religious  training  receive  a  larger 
share  of  the  master's  attention?  The  reason  I  take  to 
be  this.  Experience  shows  that  it  depends  directly  on 
the  master  whether  a  boy  acquires  knowledge,  but  only 
indirectly,  and  in  a  much  less  degree,  whether  he  grows  up 
a  good  and  religious  man.  The  aim  which  engrosses  most 
of  our  time  is  likely  to  absorb  an  equal  share  of  our  interest  j 
and  thus  it  happens  that  masters,  especially  those  who  never 
associate  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  their  pupils  out  of 
school,  throw  energy  enough  into  making  boys  learn,  but 
seldom  think  at  all  of  the  development  of  their  character, 
or  about  their  thoughts  and  feelings  in  matters  of  religion 


schoolmaster's  moral  influence.      493 

Master's  power,  how  gained  and  lost. 

This  statement  may  indeed  be  exaggerated,  but  no  one  who 
has  the  means  of  judging  will  assert  that  it  is  altogether 
without  foundation.  And  yet,  although  a  master  can  be 
more  certain  of  sending  out  his  pupils  well-taught  than  well- 
principled,  his  influence  on  their  character  is  much  greater 
than  it  might  appear  to  a  superficial  observer.  I  am  not 
speaking  of  formal  religious  instruction.  I  refer  now  to  the 
teacher's  indirect  influence.  The  results  of  his  formal  teach- 
ing vary  as  its  amount,  but  he  can  apply  no  such  gauge  to 
his  informal  teaching.  A  few  words  of  earnest  advice  or  re- 
monstrance, which  a  boy  hears  at  the  right  time  from  a  man 
whom  he  respects,  may  affect  that  boy's  character  for  life. 
Here  everything  depends,  not  on  the  words  used,  but  on 
the  feeling  with  which  they  are  spoken,  and  on  the  way  in 
which  the  speaker  is  regarded  by  the  hearer.  In  such 
matters  the  master  has  a  much  more  delicate  and  difficult 
task  than  in  mere  instruction.  The  words,  indeed,  are  soon 
spoken,  but  that  which  gives  them  their  influence  is  not 
soon  or  easily  acquired.  Here,  as  in  so  many  other  in- 
stances, we  may  in  a  few  minutes  throw  down  what  it  has 
cost  us  days— perhaps  years — to  build  up.  An  unkind 
word  will  destroy  the  effects  of  long-continued  kindness 
Boys  always  form  their  opinion  of  a  man  from  the  worst 
they  know  of  him.  Experience  has  not  yet  taught  them 
that  good  people  have  their  failings,  and  bad  people  their 
virtues.  If  the  scholars  find  the  master  at  times  harsh  and 
testy,  they  cannot  believe  in  his  kindness  of  heart  and  care 
foj  their  welfare.  They  do  not  see  that  he  may  have  an 
ideal  before  him  to  which  he  is  partly,  though  not  wholly 
true.  They  judge  him  by  his  demeanour  in  his  least  guarded 
moments — at  times  when  he  is  jaded  and  dissatisfied  with 
the  result  of  his  labours.  At  such  times  he  is  no  longer 
34 


494      schoolmaster's  moral  influence. 
Masters,  the  open  and  the  reserved. 

"  in  touch  "  with  his  pupils.  He  is  conscious  only  of  his 
own  power  and  mental  superiority.  Feeling  almost  a  con- 
tempt for  the  boys'  weakness,  he  does  not  care  for  their 
opinion  of  him  or  think  for  an  instant  what  impression  he  is 
making  by  his  words  and  conduct.  He  gives  full  play  lo 
his  arbitriufn,  and  says  or  does  something  which  seems  to 
the  boys  to  reveal  him  in  his  true  character,  and  which 
causes  them  ever  after  to  distrust  his  kindness. 

§  2.  When  we  consider  the  way  in  which  masters  endeavour 
to  gain  influence,  we  shall  find  that  they  may  be  divided 
roughly  into  two  parties,  whom  I  will  call  the  open  and  the 
reserved.  A  teacher  of  the  open  party  endeavours  to  appear 
to  his  pupils  precisely  as  he  is.  He  will  hear  of  no  restraint 
except  that  of  decorum.  He  believes  that  if  he  is  as  much 
the  superior  of  his  pupils  as  he  ought  to  be,  his  authority 
will  take  care  of  itself  without  his  casting  round  it  a  wall  of 
artificial  reserve.  "  Be  natural,"  he  says ;  "get  rid  of  affec- 
tations and  shams  of  all  kinds ;  and  then,  if  there  is  any 
good  in  you,  it  will  tell  on  those  around  you.  Whatever  is 
bad,  would  be  felt  just  as  surely  in  disguise ;  and  the  dis- 
guise would  only  be  an  additional  source  of  mischief."  The 
reserved,  on  the  other  hand,  wish  their  pupils  to  think  of 
them  as  they  ought  to  be  rather  than  as  they  are.  Against 
the  other  party  they  urge  that  our  words  and  actions  cannot 
always  be  in  harmony  with  our  thoughts  and  feelings,  how- 
ever much  we  may  desire  to  make  them  so.  We  must, 
therefore,  they  say,  reconcile  ourselves  to  this ;  and  since 
our  words  and  actions  are  more  under  our  control  than  our 
thoughts  and  feelings,  we  must  make  them  as  nearly  as 
possible  what  they  should  be,  instead  of  debasing  thom  to 
involuntary  thoughts  and  feelings  which  are  not  worthy  of 
us.      Then  again,    a  teacher   who  is   an  idealist  may  say, 


schoolmaster's  moral  influence.       495 

Danger  of  excess  either  way. 

"The  young  require  some  one  to  look  up  to.  In  my 
better  moments  I  am  not  altogether  unworthy  of  their 
respect ;  but  if  they  knew  all  my  weaknesses,  they  would 
naturally,  and  perhaps  justly,  despise  me.  For  their  sakes, 
therefore,  I  must  keep  my  weaknesses  out  of  sight,  and  the 
effort  to  do  this  demands  a  certain  reserve  in  all  our  inter- 
course." 

§  3.  I  suppose  an  excess  in  either  direction  might  lead 
to  miscjiievous  results.  The  "  open  "  man  might  be  want- 
ing in  self-restraint,  and  might  say  and  do  things  which, 
though  not  wrong  in  themselves,  might  have  a  bad  effect  on 
the  young.  Then,  again,  the  lower  and  more  worldly  side 
of  his  character  might  show  itself  in  too  strong  relief;  and 
his  pupils  seeing  this  mainly,  and  supposing  that  they 
understood  him  entirely,  might  disbelieve  in  his  higher 
motives  and  religious  feeling.  On  the  other  hand,  those 
who  set  up  for  being  better  ihan  they  really  are,  are,  as  it 
were,  walking  on  stilts.  They  gain  no  real  influence  by  their 
separation  from  their  pupils,  and  they  are  always  liable  to 
an  accident  which  may  expose  them  to  their  ridicule.* 

§  4.  I  am,  therefore,  though  with  some  limitation,  in 
favour  of  the  open  school.  I  am  well  aware,  however,  what 
an  immense  demand  this  system  makes  on  the  master  who 
desires  to  exercise  a  good  influence  on  the  moral  and  re- 
ligious character  of  his  pupils.  If  he  would  have  his  pupils 
know  him  as  he  is,  if  he  would  have  them  think  as  he  thinks, 
feel  as  he  feels,  and  believe  as  he  believes,  he  must  be,  at 
least  in  heart  and  aim,  worthy  of  their  imitation.     lie  must 

•  Dr.  J  as.  Donaldson  has  well  said  of  the  educator: — "The  most 
unguarded  of  his  acts,  those  which  come  from  the  depth  of  his  nature, 
uncalled  for  and  unbidden,  are  the  actions  which  have  the  most  powerful 
inllueiice."     Chambers  Information  sub  v.     Educaiiottf  p.  565. 


49^       schoolmaster's  moral  influence. 
High  ideal.    Danger  of  low  practice. 

(with  reverence  be  it  spoken)  enter,  in  his  humble  way, 
into  the  spirit  of  the  perfect  Teacher,  who  said,  "  For  their 
sakes  I  sanctify  myself,  that  they  also  may  be  sanctified  in 
truth."  Are  we  prepared  to  look  upon  our  calling  in  this 
light?  I  believe  that  the  school-teachers  of  this  country 
need  not  fear  comparison  with  any  other  body  of  men,  in 
point  of  morality,  and  religious  earnestness  ;  but  I  dare  say 
many  have  found,  as  I  have,  that  the  occupation  is  a  very 
narrowing  one,  that  the  teacher  soon  gets  to  work  in  a  groove, 
and  from  having  his  thoughts  so  much  occupied  with 
routine  work,  especially  with  small  fault-findings  and  small 
corrections,  he  is  apt  to  settle  down  insensibly  into  a  kind 
of  moral  and  intellectual  stagnation — Philistinism,  as 
Matthew  Arnold  has  taught  us  to  call  it — in  which  he  cares 
as  little  for  high  aims  and  general  principles  as  his  most 
commonplace  pupil.  Thus  it  happens  sometimes  that  a 
man  who  set  out  with  the  notion  of  developing  all  the 
powers  of  his  pupils'  minds,  thinks  in  the  end  of  nothing 
but  getting  them  to  work  out  equations  and  do  Latin 
exercises  without  false  concords ;  and  the  clergyman  even, 
who  began  with  a  strong  sense  of  his  responsibility  and  a 
confident  hope  of  influencing  the  boys'  belief  and  character, 
at  length  is  quite  content  if  they  conform  to  discipline  and 
give  him  no  trouble  out  of  school-hours.  We  may  say  of  a 
really  good  teacher  what  Wordsworth  says  of  the  poet ;  in 
his  work  he  must  neither 

lack  that  first  great  gift,  the  vital  soul. 
Nor  general  truths,  which  are  themselves  a  sort 
Of  elements  and  agents,  under-powers, 
Subordinate  helpers  of  the  living  mind. — Prelude^  i.  gi 

But  the  "vital  soul"  is  too  often  crushed  by  excessive 
routine  labour,  and  then  when  general  truths,  both  moral 


schoolmaster's  moral  influence.      497 
Harm  from  overworking  teachers. 

and  intellectual,  have  ceased  to  interest  us,  our  own  educa- 
tion stops,  and  we  become  incapable  of  fulfilling  the  highest 
and  most  important  part  of  our  duty  in  educating  others. 

§  5.  It  is,  then,  the  duty  of  the  teacher  to  resist  gravita- 
ling  into  this  state,  no  less  for  his  pupils'  sake  than  for  his 
own.  The  ways  and  means  of  doing  this  I  am  by  no  means 
competent  to  point  out ;  so  I  will  merely  insist  on  the 
importance  of  teachers  not  being  overworked — a  matter 
which  has  not,  I  think,  hitherto  received  due  attention. 

We  cannot  expect  intellectual  activity  of  men  whose 
minds  are  compelled  "  with  pack-horse  constancy  to  keep 
the  road"  hour  after  hour,  till  they  are  too  jaded  for 
exertion  of  any  kind.  The  man  himself  suffers,  and  his 
work,  even  his  easiest  work,  suffers  also.  It  may  be  laid 
down  as  a  general  rule,  that  no  one  can  teach  long  and 
teach  well.  All  satisfactory  teaching  and  management  of 
boys  absolutely  requires  that  the  master  should  be  in  good 
spirits.  When  the  "  genial  spirits  fail,"  as  they  must  from 
an  overdose  of  monotonous  work,  everything  goes  wrong 
directly.  The  master  has  no  longer  the  power  of  keeping 
the  boys'  attention,  and  has  to  resort  to  punishments  even 
to  preserve  order.  His  gloom  quenches  their  interest  and 
mental  activity,  just  as  fire  goes  out  before  carbonic  acid  ; 
and  in  the  end  teacher  and  taught  acquire,  not  without 
cause,  a  feeling  of  mutual  aversion. 

§  6.  And  another  reason  why  the  master  should  not 
spend  the  greater  part  of  his  time  in  formal  teaching  is  this 
— his  doing  so  compels  him  to  neglect  the  informal  but 
very  important  teaching  he  may  both  give  and  receive  by 
making  his  pupils  his  companions. 

§7.1  fear  I  shall  be  met  here  by  an  objection  which  ha3 
only  too  much  force  in  it.     Most  Englishmen  are  at  a  losg 


498      schoolmaster's  moral  influence. 

Refuge  in  routine  work.    Small  schools. 

how  to  make  any  use  of  leisure.  If  a  man  has  no  turn  foi 
thinking,  no  fondness  for  reading,  and  is  without  a  hobby, 
what  good  shall  his  leisure  do  him  ?  he  will  only  pass  it  in 
insipid  gossip,  from  which  any  easy  work  would  be  a  relief. 
That  this  is  so  in  many  cases,  is  a  proof  to  my  mind  of  the 
utter  failure  of  our  ordinary  education :  and  perhaps  an 
improved  education  may  some  day  alter  what  now  seems  a 
national  peculiarity.  Meantime  the  mind,  even  of  English- 
men, is  more  than  a  "succedaneum  for  salt;"*  and  its 
tendency  to  bury  its  sight,  ostrich-fashion,  under  a  heap  of 
routine  work  must  be  strenuously  resisted,  if  it  is  to  escape 
its  deadly  enemies,  stupidity  and  ignorance. 

§  8.  I  have  elsewhere  expressed  what  I  believe  is  the 
common  conviction  of  those  who  have  seen  something  both 
of  large  schools  and  of  small,  viz.,  that  the  moral  atmosphere 
of  the  former  is,  as  a  rule,  by  far  the  more  wholesome  ;t 

) 

*  "  That  you  are  wife 

To  so  much  bloated  flesh  as  scarce  hath  soul 

Instead  of  salt  to  keep  it  sweet,  I  think 

Will  ask  no  witnesses  to  prove." 

Ben  Jonson  :  The  Devil  is  an  Ass,  Act  i.  sc.  3. 
+  I  fortify  myself  with  the  following  quotation  from  the  Book  about 
Dominies  by  "  Ascott  Hope  "  (Hope  Moncrieff).  He  says  that  a  school 
of  from  twenty  to  a  hundred  boys  is  too  large  to  be  altogether  under  the 
influence  of  one  man,  and  too  small  for  the  development  of  a  healthy 
condition  of  public  opinion  among  the  boys  themselves.  "  In  a  com  • 
munity  of  fifty  boys,  there  will  always  be  found  so  many  bad  ones  who 
will  be  likely  to  carry  things  their  own  way.  Vice  is  more  unblushing 
in  small  societies  than  in  large  ones.  Fifty  boys  will  be  more  easily 
leavened  by  the  wickedness  of  five,  than  five  hundred  by  that  of  fifty.  It 
would  be  too  dangerous  an  ordeal  to  send  a  boy  to  a  school  where  sin 
appears  fashionable,  and  where,  if  he  would  remain  virtuous,  he  must 
shun  his  companions.  There  may  be  middle-sized  schools  which  derive 
a  good  and  healthy  tone  from  the  moral  strength  of  their  masters  or  Ihe 


schoolmaster's  moral  influence.      499 

Influence  through  the  Sixth.    Day  schools  wanted. 

and  also  that  each  boy  is  more  influenced  by  his  companions 
than  by  his  master.  More  than  this,  I  beheve  that  in  many, 
perhaps  in  most,  schools,  one  or  two  boys  affect  the  tone  of 
the  whole  body  more  than  any  master.*  What  are  called 
Preparatory  Schools  labour  under  this  immense  disadvantage, 
that  their  ruling  spirits  are  mere  children  without  reflection 
or  sense  of  responsibility. f  But  where  the  leading  boys  are 
virtually  young  men,  these  may  be  made  a  medium  through 
which  the  mind  of  the  master  may  act  upon  the  whole 
school.  They  can  enter  into  the  thoughts,  feelings,  and  aims 
of  the  master  on  the  one  hand,  and  they  know  what  is  said 
and  done  among  the  boys  on  the  other.  The  master  must, 
therefore,  know  the  elder  boys  intimately,  and  they  must 

good  example  of  a  certain  set  of  boys,  but  I  doubt  if  there  are  many. 
Boys  are  so  easily  led  to  do  right  or  wrong,  that  we  should  be  very 
careful  at  least  to  set  the  balance  fairly"  (p.  167) ;  and  again  he  says 
(p.  170),  "The  moral  tone  of  a  middle-sized  school  will  be  peculiarly 
liable  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  a  set  of  bold  and  bad  boys. " 

*  As  I  have  been  thought  to  express  myself  too  strongly  on  this  point, 
I  will  give  a  quotation  from  a  master  whose  opinion  will  go  far  with  all 
who  know  him.  "  The  moral  tone  of  the  school  is  made  what  it  is, 
not  nearly  so  much  by  its  rules  and  regulations,  or  its  masters,  as  by  the 
leading  characters  among  the  boys.  They  mainly  determine  the  public 
opinion  amongst  their  schoolfellows — their  personal  influence  is  incal- 
culable."   Rev.  D.  Edwardes,  of  Denstone. 

t  About  Preparatory  Schools  I  find  I  am  at  issue  with  my  friend  the 
Head  M^sister  of  Harrow  (See  Public  Schools,  by  Rev.  J.  E.  C.  Welldon, 
in  Contetnporary  R.,  May,  1890).  I  do  indeed  incline  to  his  opinion  that 
very  young  boys  should  not  be  at  a  public  school,  but  I  cannot  agree 
that  they  should  be  at  a  middle-sized  boarding  school.  I  hold  that  they 
should  live  in  a  family  (their  own  if  possible)  and  go  to  a  day  school. 
Day  Schools  have  now  been  provided  for  girls,  but  for  young  boys  they 
do  not  seem  in  demand.  English  parents  who  can  afford  it  send  their 
sons  to  boarding  schools  from  eight  years  old  onwards.  This  seems  to 
me  a  great  mistake  of  theirs. 


500        SCHOOLMASTER'S   MORAL  INFLUENCE. 

Teaching  religion  in  England  and  Germany. 

know  him.  This  consummation,  however,  will  not  be 
arrived  at  without  great  tact  and  self-denial  on  the  part  of 
the  master.  The  youth  who  is  "  neither  man  nor  boy  "  is 
apt  to  be  shy  and  awkward,  and  is  not  by  any  means  so  easy 
to  entertain  as  the  lad  who  chatters  freely  of  the  school's 
cricket  or  football,  past,  present,  and  to  come.  But  the 
master  who  feels  how  all-important  is  the  tone  of  the  school, 
will  not  grudge  any  pains  to  influence  those  on  whom  it 
chiefly  depends. 

§  9.  But,  allowing  the  value  of  all  these  indirect  influences, 
can  we  afford  to  neglect  direct  formal  religious  instruction  ? 
We  have  most  of  us  the  greatest  horror  of  what  we  call  a 
secular  education,  meaning  thereby  an  education  without 
formal  religious  teaching.  But  this  horror  seems  to  affect 
our  theory  more  than  our  practice.  Few  parents  ever 
enquire  what  religious  instruction  their  sons  get  at  Eton, 
Harrow,  or  Westminster.  At  Harrow  when  I  was  in  the 
Fourth  Form  there  (nearly  fifty  years  ago  by  the  way)  we 
had  no  religious  instruction  except  a  weekly  lesson  in  Watts's 
Scripture  History ;  and  when  I  was  a  master  some  twenty 
years  ago  my  form  had  only  a  Sunday  lesson  in  a  portion 
of  the  Old  Testament,  and  a  lesson  in  French  Testament  at 
"  First  School "  on  Monday.  Even  in  some  "  Voluntary 
Schools  "  we  do  not  find  "  religious  instruction  "  made  so 
much  of  as  the  arithmetic. 

§  10.  In  this  matter  we  differ  very  widely  from  the 
Germans.  All  their  classes  have  a  "religion-lesson  "  {Religion- 
siuride)  nearly  every  day,  the  younger  children  in  the  German 
Bible,  the  elder  in  the  Greek  Testament  or  Church  History  ; 
and  in  all  cases  the  teacher  is  careful  to  instruct  his  pupils 
in  the  tenets  of  Luther  or  Calvin.  The  Germanri  may 
urge  that  if  we  believe  a  set  of  doctrines  to  be  a  fitting 


schoolmaster's  moral  influence.      501 

Religious  teaching  connected  with  worship. 

expression  of  Divine  revelation,  it  is  our  first  duty  to  make 
the  young  familiar  with  those  doctrines.  I  cannot  say, 
however,  that  I  have  been  favourably  impressed  by  the 
religion-lessons  I  have  heard  given  in  German  schools.  I 
<lo  not  deny  that  dogmatic  teaching  is  necessary,  but  the 
first  thing  to  cultivate  in  the  young  is  reverence;  and 
reverence  is  surely  in  danger  if  you  take  a  class  in  "  religion" 
just  as  you  take  a  class  in  grammar.  Emerson  says  some- 
where, that  to  the  poet,  the  saint,  and  the  philosopher,  all 
distinction  of  sacred  and  profane  ceases  to  exist,  all  things 
become  alike  sacred.  As  the  schoolboy,  however,  does  not 
as  yet  come  under  any  one  of  these  denominations,  if  the 
distinction  ceases  to  exist  for  him,  all  things  will  become 
alike  profane. 

§  II.  I  believe  that  religious  instruction  is  conveyed  in 
the  most  impressive  way  when  it  is  connected  with  worship. 
Where  the  prayers  are  joined  with  the  reading  of  Scripture 
and  with  occasional  simple  addresses,  and  where  the  congre- 
gation have  responses  to  repeat,  and  psalms  and  hymns  to 
sing,  there  is  reason  to  hope  that  boys  will  increase,  not  only 
in  knowledge,  but  in  wisdom  and  reverence  too.  With- 
out asserting  that  the  Church  of  England  service  is  the  best 
possible  for  the  young,  I  hold  that  any  form  for  them  should 
at  least  resemble  it  in  its  main  features,  should  be  as  varied 
as  possible,  should  require  frequent  change  of  posture,  and 
should  give  the  congregation  much  to  say  and  sing.  Much 
use  might  be  made  as  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  of  litanies. 
The  service,  whatever  its  form,  should  be  conducted  with 
great  solemnity,  and  the  boys  should -not  sit  or  kneel  so 
close  together  that  the  badly  disposed  may  disturb  their 
neighbours  who  try  to  join  in  the  act  of  worship.  If  good 
hymns  are  sung,  these  may  be  taken  occasionally  as  the 


502      schoolmaster's  moral  influence. 

Education  to  goodness  and  piety. 

subject  of  an  address,  so  that  attention  may  be  drawn  to 
their  meaning.  Music  should  be  carefully  attended  to, 
and  the  danger  of  irreverence  at  practices  guarded  against 
by  never  using  sacred  words  more  than  is  necessary,  and  by 
impressing  on  the  singers  the  sacredness  of  everything 
connected  with  Divine  worship.  Questions  combined 
with  instruction  may  sometimes  keep  up  boys'  attention 
better  than  a  formal  sermon.  Though  common  prayer 
should  be  frequent,  this  should  not  be  supposed  to  take  the 
place  of  private  prayer.  In  many  schools  boys  have  hardly 
an  opportunity  for  private  prayer.  They  kneel  down,  per- 
haps, with  all  the  talk  and  play  of  their  schoolfellows  going 
on  around  them,  and  sometimes  fear  of  public  opinion 
prevents  their  kneeling  down  at  all.  A  schoolmaster  can- 
not teach  private  prayer,  but  he  can  at  least  see  that  there 
is  opportunity  for  it. 

Education  to  goodness  and  piety,  as  far  as  it  lies  in 
human  hands,  must  consist  almost  entirely  in  the  influence 
of  the  good  and  pious  superior  over  his  inferiors,  and  as 
this  influence  is  independent  of  rules,  these  remarks  of 
mine  cannot  do  more  than  touch  the  surface  of  this  most 
important  subject.* 

§  12.  In  conclusion,  I  wish  to  say  a  word  on  the  educa- 
tion of  opinion.      Sir  Arthur   Helps   lays   great  stress  on 

*  "  What  s  education  ?  It  is  that  which  is  imbibed  from  the  moral 
atmosphere  which  a  child  breathes.  It  is  the  involuntary  and  uncon- 
scious language  of  its  parents  and  of  all  those  by  whom  it  is  surrounded, 
and  not  their  set  speeches  and  set  lectures.  It  is  the  words  which  the 
young  hear  tall  from  their  seniors  when  the  speakers  are  off  their 
guard  :  and  it  is  by  these  unconscious  expressions  that  the  child  inter- 
prets the  hearts  of  its  parents.  That  is  education." — Drummond's 
Speeches  in  Parliament. 


schoolmaster's  moral  influence.       5.03 

How  to  avoid  narrow-mindedness. 

preparing  the  way  to  moderation  and  open-mindedness  by 
teaching  boys  that  all  good  men  are  not  of  the  same  way  of 
thinking.  It  is  indeed  a  miserable  error  to  lead  a  young 
person  to  suppose  that  his  small  ideas  are  a  measure  of  the 
universe,  and  that  all  who  do  not  accept  his  formularies  are 
less  enlightened  than  himself.  If  a  young  man  is  so  brought 
up,  he  either  carries  intellectual  blinkers  all  his  life,  or, 
what  is  far  more  probable,  he  finds  that  something  he  has 
been  taught  is  false,  and  forthwith  begins  to  doubt  every- 
thing. On  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  necessity  with  the  young 
to  believe,  and  we  could  not,  even  if  we  would,  bring  a  youth 
into  such  a  state  of  mind  as  to  regard  everything  about  which 
"there  is  any  variety  of  opinion  as  an  open  question.  But  he 
may  be  taught  reverence  and  humility ;  he  may  be  taught 
to  reflect  how  infinitely  greater  the  facts  of  the  universe 
must  be  than  our  poor  thoughts  about  them,  and  how  in 
adequate  are  words  to  express  even  our  imperfect  thoughts. 
Then  he  will  not  suppose  that  all  truth  has  been  taught  him 
in  his  formularies,  nor  that  he  understands  even  all  the 
truth  of  which  those  formularies  are  the  imperfect  expression.* 

*  In  what  I  have  said  on  this  subject,  the  incompleteness  which  is 
noticeable  enough  in  the  preceding  essays,  has  found  an  appropriate 
climax.  I  see,  too,  that  if  anyone  would  take  the  trouble,  the  little  t. 
have  said  might  easily  be  misinterpreted.  I  am  well  aware,  however, 
that  if  the  young  mind  will  not  readily  assimilate  sharply  defining  re- 
ligious formulae,  still  less  will  it  feel  at  home  among  the  "  immensities  " 
and  "veracities."  The  great  educating  force  of  Christianity  I  believe 
to  be  due  to  this,  that  it  is  not  a  set  of  abstractions  or  vague  generalities, 
but  that  in  it  God  reveals  Himself  to  us  in  a  Divine  Man,  and  raises  us 
through  our  devotion  to  Him.  I  hold,  therefore,  that  religious  teaching 
for  the  young  should  neither  be  vague  nor  abstract.  Mr.  Froude,  in 
commenting  on  the  use  made  of  hagiology  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  has 
shown  that  we  lose  much  by  not  following  the  Bible  method  of  instruc- 
tion.    (See  SAori  Studies :  Lives  of  the  Saints,  and  Representative  Men.  \ 


XXII. 

CONCLUSION. 


§  I.  When  I  originally  published  these  essays  (more  than 
22  years  ago)  the  critic  of  the  Noncotiformist  in  one  of  the 
best,  though  by  no  means  most  complimentary,  of  the  many 
notices  with  which  the  book  was  favoured,  took  me  to  task 
for  being  in  such  a  hurry  to  publish.  I  had  confessed 
incompleteness.  What  need  was  there  for  me  to  publish 
before  I  had  completed  my  work  ?  Since  that  time  I  have 
spent  years  on  my  subject  and  at  least  two  years  on  these 
essays  themselves ;  but  they  now  seem  to  me  even  further 
from  completeness  than  they  seemed  then.  However,  I 
have  reason  to  believe  that  the  old  book,  incomplete  as  it 
was,  proved  useful  to  teachers ;  and  in  its  altered  form  it 
will,  I  hope,  be  found  useful  still. 

§  2.  It  may  be  useful  I  think  in  two  ways. 

First :  it  may  lead  some  teachers  to  the  study  of  the 
great  thinkers  on  education.  There  are  some  vital  truths 
which  remain  in  the  books  which  time  cannot  destroy.  In 
the  world  as  Goethe  says  are  few  voices,  many  echoes ;  and 
the  echoes  often  prevent  our  hearing  the  voices  distinctly. 
Perhaps  most  people  had  a  better  chance  of  hearing  tlie 


CONCLUSION.  505 


A  growing  science  of  education, 

voices  when  there  were  fewer  books  and  no  periodicals. 
Speakers  properly  so  called  cannot  now  be  heard  for  the 
hubbub  of  the  talkers ;  and  as  literature  is  becoming  more 
and  more  periodical  our  writers  seem  mostly  employed  like 
children  on  card  pagodas  or  like  the  recumbent  artists  of 
the  London  streets  who  produce  on  the  stones  of  the  pave- 
ment gaudy  chalk  drawings  which  the  next  shower  washes 
out. 

But  if  I  would  have  fewer  books  what  business  have  I  to 
add  to  the  number  ?     I  may  be  told  that — 

*'  He  who  in  quest  of  quiet,  *  Silence  ! '  hoots, 
"  Is  apt  to  make  the  hubbub  he  imputes." 

My  answer  is  that  I  do  not  write  to  expound  my  own 
thought,  but  to  draw  attention  to  the  thoughts  of  the  men 
who  are  best  worth  hearing.  It  is  not  given  to  us  small 
people  to  think  strongly  and  clearly  like  the  great  people ; 
we,  however,  gain  in  strength  and  clearness  by  contact  with 
them ;  and  this  contact  I  seek  to  promote.  So  long  as  this 
book  is  used,  it  will  I  hope  be  used  only  as  an  introduction 
to  the  great  thinkers  whose  names  are  found  in  it. 

§  3.  There  is  another  way  in  which  the  book  may  be  of 
use.  By  considering  the  great  thinkers  in  chronological 
order  we  see  that  each  adds  to  the  treasure  which  he  finds 
already  accumulated,  and  thus  by  degrees  we  are  arriving 
in  education,  as  in  most  departments  of  human  endeavour, 
at  a  scieiue.  In  this  science  lies  our  hope  for  the  future. 
Teachers  must  endeavour  to  obtain  more  and  more  know- 
ledge of  the  laws  to  which  their  art  has  to  conform  itself. 

§  4.  It  may  be  of  advantage  to  some  readers  if  I  point 
out  briefly  what  seems  to  me  the  course  of  the  main  stream 
of  thought  as  it  has  flowed  down  to  us  from  the  Renascence. 


506  CONCLUSION. 


Jesuits  the  first  Reformers. 


§  5.  As  I  endeavoured  to  show  at  the  beginning  of  this 
book,  the  Scholars  of  the  Renascence  fell  into  a  great 
mistake,  a  mistake  which  perhaps  could  not  have  be^n 
avoided  at  a  time  when  literature  was  rediscovered  and  the 
printing  press  had  just  been  invented.  This  mistake  was 
the  idolatry  of  books,  and,  still  worse,  of  books  in  Latin 
and  Greek.  So  the  schoolmaster  fell  into  a  bad  theory  or 
conception  of  his  task,  for  he  supposed  that  his  function 
was  to  teach  Latin  and  Greek ;  and  his  practice  or  way  of 
going  to  work  was  not  much  better,  for  his  chief  implements 
were  grammar  and  the  cane. 

§  6.  The  first  who  made  a  great  advance  were  the 
Jesuits.  They  were  indeed  far  too  much  bent  on  being 
popular  to  be  "  Innovators."  They  endeavoured  to  do 
well  what  most  schoolmasters  did  badly.  They  taught 
Latin  and  Greek,  and  they  made  great  use  of  grammar,  but 
they  gave  up  the  cane.  Boys  were  to  be  made  happy. 
School-hours  were  to  be  reduced  from  10  hours  a  day  to 
5  hours,  and  in  those  5  hours  learning  was  to  be  made 
"  not  only  endurable  but  even  pleasurable." 

But  the  pupils  were  to  find  this  pleasure  not  in  the 
exercise  of  their  mental  powers  but  in  other  ways.  As  Mr. 
Eve  has  said,  young  teachers  are  inclined  to  think  mainly 
of  stimulating  their  pupils'  minds  and  so  neglect  the  repeti- 
tion needed  for  accuracy.  Old  teachers  on  the  other  hand 
care  so  much  for  accuracy  that  they  require  the  same  thing 
over  and  over  till  the  pupils  lose  zest  and  mental  activity 
The  Jesuits  frankly  adopted  the  maxim  "  Repetition  is  the 
mother  of  studies,"  and  worked  over  the  same  ground  again 
and  again.  The  two  forces  on  which  they  relied  for 
making  the  work  pleasant  were  one  good — the  personal 
influence  of  the  master  ("  boys  will  soon  love  learning  when 


CONCLUSION.  507 


The  Jesuits  cared  for  more  than  classics. 

they  love  the  teacher,")  and  one  bad  or  at  least  doubtful — 
the  spur  of  emulation. 

Hotvever,  the  attempt  to  lead,  not  drive,  was  a  great  step 
in  the  right  direction.  Moreover  as  they  did  not  hold  with 
the  Sturms  and  Trotzendorfs  that  the  classics  in  and  for 
themselves  were  the  object  of  education  the  Jesuits  were  able 
to  think  of  other  things  as  well.  They  were  very  careful  of 
the  health  of  the  body.  And  they  also  enlarged  the  task  of 
the  schoolmaster  in  another  and  still  more  important  way. 
I'o  the  best  of  their  lights  they  attended  to  the  moral  and 
religious  training  of  their  pupils.  It  is  much  to  the  credit 
of  the  Fathers  that  though  Plautus  and  Terence  were 
considered  very  valuable  for  giving  a  knowledge  of  colloquial 
Latin  and  were  studied  and  learnt  by  heart  in  the  Protestant 
schools,  the  Jesuits  rejected  them  on  account  of  their 
impurity.  The  Jesuits  wished  the  whole  boy,  not  his 
memory  only,  to  be  affected  by  the  master ;  so  the  master 
was  to  make  a  study  of  each  of  his  pupils  and  to  go  on 
with  the  same  pupils  through  the  greater  part  of  their 
school  course. 

The  Jesuit  system  stands  out  in  the  history  of  education 
as  a  remarkable  instance  of  a  school  system  elaborately 
thought  out  and  worked  as  a  whole.  In  it  the  individual 
schoolmaster  withered,  but  the  system  grew,  and  was,  I  may 
say  is,  a  mighty  organism.  The  single  Jesuit  teacher  might 
not  be  the  superior  ofthe  average  teacher  in  good  Protestant 
schools,  but  by  their  unity  of  action  the  Jesuits  triumphed  over 
their  rivals  as  easily  as  a  regiment  of  soldiers  scatters  a  mob. 

§  7.  The  schoolmastei's  theory  of  the  human  mind  made 
of  it,  to  use  Bartle  Massey's  simile,  a  kind  of  bladder  fit 
only  to  hold  what  was  poured  into  it.  This  pouring-in 
theory  of  education   was  first  called   in   question  by  that 


508  CONCLUSION. 


Rabelais  for  "intuition." 


strange  genius  who  seems  to  have  stood  outside  all  the 
traditions  and  opinions  of  his  age, 

"  holding  no  form  of  creedj 
But  contemplating  all." 

i  mean  Rabelais. 

Like  most  reformers,  Rabelais  begins  with  denunciations 
of  the  system  established  by  use  and  wont.  After  an 
account  of  the  school-teaching  and  school-books  of  the 
day,  he  says — "It  would  be  better  for  a  boy  to  learn 
nothing  at  all  than  to  be  taught  such-like  books  by  such-like 
masters."  He  then  proposes  a  training  in  which,  though 
the  boy  is  to  study  books,  he  is  not  to  do  this  mainly,  but 
is  to  be  led  to  look  about  him,  and  to  use  both  his  senses 
and  his  limbs.  For  instance,  he  is  to  examine  the  stars 
when  he  goes  to  bed,  and  then  to  be  called  up  at  four  in 
the  morning  to  find  the  change  that  has  taken  place.  Here 
we  see  a  training  of  the  powers  of  observation.  These 
powers  are  also  to  be  exercised  on  the  trees  and  plants 
which  are  met  with  out-of  doors,  and  on  objects  within  the 
house,  as  well  as  on  the  food  placed  on  the  table.  The  study 
of  books  is  to  be  joined  with  this  study  of  things,  for  the 
old  authors  are  to  be  consulted  for  their  accounts  of  what- 
ever has  been  met  with.  The  study  of  trades,  too,  and  the 
practice  of  some  of  them,  such  as  wood-cutting,  and  carving 
in  stone,  makes  a  very  interesting  feature  in  this  system. 
On  the  whole,  I  think  we  may  say  that  Rabelais  was  the 
first  to  advocate  training  as  distinguished  from  teaching ; 
and  he  was  the  father  of  Anschauungs-unterricht,  teaching 
by  intuition,  i.e.,  by  the  pupil's  own  senses  and  the  spring 
of  his  own  intelligence.  Rabelais  would  bestow  much  care 
on  the  body  too.  Not  only  was  the  pupil  to  ride  and 
fence ;  we  find  him  even  shouting  for  the  benefit  of  his  lungs. 


CONCLUSION.  509 


Montaigne  for  educating  mind  and  body. 

§  8.  Rabelais  had  now  started  an  entirely  new  theory  of 
the  educator's  task,  and  fifty  years  afterwards  his  thought  was 
tiken  up  and  put  forward  with  incomparable  vigour  by  the 
great  essayist,  Montaigne.  Montaigne  starts  with  a  quotation 
f/om  Rabelais — "The  greatest  clerks  are  not  the  wisest 
men,"  and  then  he  makes  one  of  the  most  effective 
onslaughts  on  the  pouring-in  theory  that  is  to  be  found  in 
all  literature.  His  accusation  against  the  schoolmasters  of 
his  time  is  twofold.  First,  he  says,  they  aim  only  at  giving 
knowledge,  whereas  they  should  first  think  of  judgment  and 
virtue.  Secondly,  in  their  method  of  teaching  they  do  not 
exercise  the  pupils'  own  minds,  The  sum  and  substance 
of  the  charge  is  contained  in  these  words — "  We  labour  to 
stuff  the  memory  and  in  the  meantime  leave  the  conscience 
and  understanding  impoverished  and  void."  His  notion  of 
education  embraced  the  whole  man.  "  Our  very  exercises 
and  recreations,"  says  he,  "running,  wrestling,  music, 
dancing,  hunting,  riding,  fencing,  will  prove  to  be  a  good 
part  of  our  study.  I  would  have  the  pupil's  outward 
fashion  and  mien  and  the  disposition  of  his  limbs  formed 
at  the  same  time  with  his  mind.  'Tis  not  a  soul,  'tis  not 
a  body,  that  we  are  training  up,  but  a  man,  and  we  ought 
not  to  divide  him." 

§  9.  Before  the  end  of  the  fifteen  hundreds  then  we  see 
in  the  best  thought  of  the  time  a  great  improvement  in  the 
conception  of  the  task  of  the  schoolmaster.  Learning  is 
not  the  only  thing  to  be  thought  of.  Moral  and  religious 
training  are  recognised  as  of  no  less  importance.  And  as 
"  both  soul  and  body  have  been  created  by  the  hand  of 
God "  (the  words  are  Ignatius  Loyola's),  both  must  be 
thought  of  in  education.  When  we  come  to  instruction 
we  find  Rabelais  recommending  that  at  least  part  of  it 
-35 


5IO  CONCLUSION. 


17th  century  reaction  against  books. 

sliould  be  "  intuitive,"  and  Montaigne  requiring  that  the 
instruction  should  involve  an  exercise  of  the  intellectual 
powers  of  the  learner.  But  the  escape  even  in  thought 
from  the  Renascence  ideal  was  but  partial.  Some  of 
Rabelais'. directions  seem  to  come  from  a  "  Verbal  Realist," 
and  Montaigne  was  far  from  saying  as  Joseph  Payne  has 
said,  "  every  act  of  teaching  is  a  mode  of  dealing  with 
mind  and  will  be  successful  only  in  proportion  as  this 
is  recognised,"  "  teaching  is  only  another  name  for  mental 
training."  But  if  Rabelais  and  Montaigne  did  not  reach 
the  best  thought  of  our  time  they  were  much  in  advance  of 
a  great  deal  of  o\xx practice. 

§  10.  The  opening  of  the  sixteen  hundreds  saw  a  great 
revolt  from  the  literary  spirit  of  the  Renascence.  The 
exclusive  devotion  to  books  was  followed  by  a  reaction. 
There  might  after  all  be  something  worth  knowing  that 
books  would  not  teach.  Why  give  so  much  time  to  the 
study  of  words  and  so  little  to  the  observation  of  things  ? 
"  Youth,"  says  a  writer  of  the  time,  "  is  deluged  with 
grammar  precepts  infinitely  tedious,  perplexed,  obscure,  and 
for  the  most  part  unprofitable,  and  that  for  many  years." 
Why  not  escape  from  this  barren  region  ?  "  Gome  forth, 
my  son,"  says  Comenius.  "  Let  us  go  into  the  open  air. 
There  you  shall  view  whatsoever  God  produced  from  the 
beginning  and  doth  yet  effect  by  nature."  And  Milton 
thus  expresses  the  conviction  of  his  day  :  "  Because  our 
understanding  cannot  in  this  body  found  itself  but  on 
sensible  things,  nor  arrive  so  clearly  to  the  knowledge  of 
God  and  things  invisible  as  by  orderly  conning  over  the 
visible  and  inferior  creature,  the  same  method  is  necessarily 
to  be  followed  in  all  discreet  teaching." 

This  great  revolution  which  was  involved  in  the  Baconian 


CONCLUSION.  511 


Reaction  not  felt  in  schools  and  UU. 

philosophy  may  be  described  as  a  turning  from  fancy  to 
fact.  All  the  creations  of  the  human  mind  seemed  to 
have  lost  their  value.  The  only  things  that  seemed  worth 
.studying  were  the  material  universe  and  the  laws  or 
sequences  which  were  gradually  ascertained  by  patient 
induction  and  experiment. 

§  II.  Till  the  present  century  this  revolution  did  not 
extend  to  our  schools  and  universities.  It  is  only  within 
the  last  fifty  years  that  natural  science  has  been  studied 
even  in  the  University  of  Bacon  and  Newton.  The  Public 
School  Commission  of  1862  found  that  the  curriculum  was 
just  as  it  had  been  settled  at  the  Renascence.  But  if  the 
walls  of  these  educational  Jerichos  were  still  standing  this 
was  not  from  any  remissness  on  the  part  of  "  the  children  of 
light"  in  shouting  and  blowing  with  the  trumpet.  They 
raised  the  war-cry  "  Not  words,  but  things  ! "  and  the  cry 
has  been  continued  by  a  succession  of  eminent  men  against 
the  schools  of  the  17th  and  i8th  centuries  and  has  at 
length  begun  to  tell  on  the  schools  of  the  19th.  Perhaps 
the  change  demanded  is  best  shown  in  the  words  of  John 
Dury  about  1649  :  "  The  true  end  of  all  human  learning  is 
to  supply  in  ourselves  and  others  the  defects  which  proceed 
from  our  ignorance  of*the  nature  and  use  of  the  creatures 
and  the  disorderliness  of  our  natural  faculties  in  using  them 
and  reflecting  upon  them."  So  the  Innovators  required 
teachers  to  devote  themselves  to  natural  science  and  to  the 
science  of  the  human  mind. 

§  1 2.  The  first  Innovators,  like  the  people  of  the  fifteen 
hundreds,  thought  mainly  of  the  acquisition  of  knowledge, 
only  the  knowledge  was  to  be  not  of  the  classics  but  of  the 
material  world.  In  this  they  seem  inferior  to  Montaigne 
who  had  given  the  first  place  to  virtue  and  judgment 


512  CONCLUSION. 


Comenius  begins  science  of  education. 

§  13.  But  towards  the  middle  of  the  sixteen  hundreds 
a  very  eminent  Innovator  took  a  comprehensive  view  of 
education,  and  reduced  instruction  to  its  proper  place,  that 
is,  he  treated  it  as  a  part  of  education  merely.  This  man, 
Comenius,  was  at  once  a  philosopher,  a  philanthropist,  and 
a  schoolmaster;  and  in  his  writings  we  find  the  first  at.tempt 
at  a  science  of  education.  The  outline  of  his  science  is  as 
follows  : — 

"We  live  a  threefold  life — a  vegetative,  an  animal,  and 
an  intellectual  or  spiritual.  Of  these,  the  first  is  perfect  in 
the  womb,  the  last  in  heaven.  He  is  Jiappy  who  comes 
with  healthy  body  into  the  world,  much  more  he  who  goes 
with  healthy  spirit  out  of  it.  According  to  the  heavenly 
idea  a  man  should — ist,  Know  all  things;  2nd,  He  should 
be  master  of  things  and  of  himself;  3rd,  He  should  refer 
everything  to  God.  So  that  within  us  Nature  has  implanted 
the  seeds  of  learning,  of  virtue,  and  of  piety.  To  bring 
these  seeds  to  maturity  is  the  object  of  education.  All 
men  require  education,  and  God  has  made  children  unfit 
for  other  employment  that  they  may  have  time  to  learn." 

Here  we  have  quite  a  new  theory  of  the  educator's  task. 
He  is  to  bring  to  maturity  the  seeds  of  learning,  virtue, 
and  piety,  which  are  already  sown  by  Nature  in  his  pupils. 
This  is  quite  different  from  the  pouring-in  theory,  and  seems 
to  anticipate  the  notion  of  Froebel,  that  the  educator  should 
be  called  not  teacher  but  gardener.  But  Comenius  evi- 
dently made  too  much  of  knowledge.  Had  he  lived  two 
centuries  later  he  would  have  seen  the  area  of  possible 
knowledge  extending  to  infinity  in  all  directions,  and  he 
would  no  longer  have  made  it  his  ideal  that  "  man  should 
know  all  things." 

§  14   The  next  great  thinker  about  education — I  mean 


CONCLUSION.  513 


Locke's  teacher  a  disposer  of  influence. 

Locke — seems  to  me  chiefly  important  from  his  having 
taken  up  the  principles  of  Montaigne  and  treated  the  giving 
of  knowledge  as  of  very  small  importance.  Montaigne,  as 
we  have  seen,  was  the  first  to  bring  out  clearly  that  educa- 
tion was  much  more  than  instruction,  as  the  whole  was 
greater  than  its  part,  and  that  instruction  was  of  far  less 
importance  than  some  other  parts  of  education.  And  this 
lies  at  the  root  of  Locke's  theory  also.  The  great  function 
of  the  educator,  according  to  him,  is  not  to  teach,  but  to 
dispose  the  pupil  to  virtue  first,  industry  next,  and  then 
knowledge ;  but  he  thinks  where  the  first  two  have  been 
properly  cared  for  knowledge  will  come  of  itself  The 
following  are  Locke's  own  words  : — "  The  great  work  of  a 
governor  is  to  fashion  the  carriage  and  to  form  the  mind, 
to  settle  in  his  pupil  good  habits  and  the  principles  of  virtue 
and  wisdom,  to  give  him  little  by  little  a  view  of  mankind 
and  work  him  into  a  love  and  imitation  of  what  is  excellent 
and  praiseworthy ;  and  in  the  prosecution  of  it  to  give  him 
vigour,  activity,  and  industry.  The  studies  which  he  sets 
him  upon  are  but,  as  it  were,  the  exercise  of  his  faculties 
and  employment  of  his  time;  to  keep  him  from  sauntering 
and  idleness ;  to  teach  him  application  and  accustom  him 
to  take  pains,  and  to  give  him  some  little  taste  of  what 
his  own  industry  must  perfect."*     So  we  see  that  Locke 

*  This  theory  of  the  educator's  task  which  makes  him  a  disposer  or 
director  of  influence  rather  th^n  a  teacher,  led  Locke  to  decry  out 
public  schools,  for  in  them  the  traditions  and  tone  of  the  school  seem 
the  source  of  influence,  and  the  masters  are  to  all  appearance  mainly 
teachers,  Locke's  own  words  are  these  : — "  The  difference  is  great 
between  two  or  three  pupils  in  the  same  house  and  three  or  four 
score  boys  lodged  up  and  down ;  for  let  the  master's  industry  and 
skill  be  never  so  great,  it  is  impossible  he  should  have  fifty  or  a  hundred 


514  CONCLUSION. 

Locke  and  public  schools.    Escape  from  "idols." 

agrees  with  Comenius  in  his  enlarged  view  of  the  educator's 
task,  and  that  he  thought  much  less  than  Comenius  of  the 
importance  of  the  knowledge  to  be  given. 

§  15.  We  already  see  a  gradual  escape  from  the  "idols  " 
of  the  Renascence.  Locke,  instead  of  accepting  the  learned 
ideal,  declares  that  learning  is  the  last  and  least  thing  to 
be  thought  of.  He  cares  little  about  the  ordinary  literary 
instruction  given  to  children,  though  he  thinks  they  must 
be  taught  something  and  does  not  know  what  to  put  in 
its  place.     He  provides  for  the  education  of  those  who  are 

scholar?  nnder  his  eye  any  longer  than  they  are  in  the  school  together, 
nor  can  It  be  expected  that  he  should  instinct  them  successfully  in  any- 
thing but  their  books  ;  the  forming  of  their  minds  and  manners  requiring 
a  constant  attention  and  particular  application  to  every  single  boy 
which  is  impossible  in  a  numerous  flock,  and  would  be  wholly  in  vain 
(could  he  have  time  to  study  and  correct  everyone's  particular  defects 
and  wrong  inclinations)  when  the  lad  was  to  be  left  to  himself  or  the 
prevailing  infection  of  his  fellows  the  greatest  part  of  the  four-and-twenty 
hours. "  But  the  educator  who  considers  himself  a  director  of  influences 
must  remember  that  he  is  not  the  only  force.  The  boy's  companions 
are  a  force  at  least  as  great ;  and  if  he  were  brought  up  in  private  on 
Locke's  system,  he  would  be  entirely  without  a  kind  of  influence  much 
more  valuable  than  Locke  seems  to  think — the  influence  of  boy  com- 
panions, and  of  the  traditions  of  a  great  school.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  our  public  schools  used  to  be,  and  perhaps  are 
still  to  some  extent,  under-mastered,  and  that  the  masters  should  not 
be  the  mere  teachers  which,  from  overwork  and  other  causes,  they  often 
ter  d  to  become.  The  consequence  has  been  that  the  real  education  o( 
the  boys  has  in  a  great  measure  passed  out  of  their  hands.  What  has 
been  the  result  ?  A  long  succession  of  able  teachers  have  aimed  at  giving 
literary  instruction  and  making  their  pupils  classical  scholars.  Both 
manners  and  bodily  training  have  been  left  to  take  care  of  then:selves. 
Yet  such  is  the  irony  of  Fate  that  the  majority  of  youths  who  leave  out 
great  schools  are  not  literary  and  are  not  much  of  classical  scholars,  but 
they  are  decidedly  gentlemanly  and  still  more  decidedly  athletic 


CONCLUSION.  515 


Rousseau's  clean  sweep. 


to  remain  ignorant  of  Greek,  but  only  when  they  are  "gentle- 
men." In  this  respect  the  van  is  led  by  Comenius,  who 
thought  of  education  for  all^  boys  and  girls,  rich  and  poor, 
alike.  Comenius  also  gave  the  first  hint  of  the  true  nature 
of  our  task — to  bring  to  perfection  the  seeds  implanted  by 
Nature.  He  also  cared  for  the  little  ones  whom  the  school- 
master had  despised.  Locke  does  not  escape  from  a 
certain  intellectual  disdain  of  "  my^  young  masters,"  as  he 
calls  them ;  but  in  one  respect  he  advanced  as  far  as  the 
best  thinkers  among  his  successors  have  advanced.  Know- 
ledge, he  says,  must  come  by  the  action  of  the  learner's 
own  mind.     The  true  teacher  is  within. 

§  16.  We  now  come  to  the  least  practical  and  at  the 
same  time  the  most  influential  of  all  the  writers  on  education 
— I  mean  Rousseau.  He,  like  Rabelais,  Montaigne,  and 
Locke,  was  (to  use  Matthew  Arnold's  expression)  a  "  child 
of  the  idea."  He  attacked  scholastic  use  and  wont  not  in 
the  name  of  expedience,  but  in  the  name  of  reason ;  and 
such  an  attack — so  eloquent,  so  vehement,  so  uncompro- 
mising— had  never  been  made  before. 

Still  there  remained  even  in  theory,  and  far  more  in 
practice,  effects  produced  by  the  false  ideal  of  the  Renas- 
cence. This  ideal  Rousseau  entirely  rejected.  He  proposed 
making  a  clean  sweep  and  returning  to  what  he  called  the 
state  of  Nature. 

§  17.  Rousseau  was  by  no  means  the  first  of  the  Re- 
formers who  advocated  a  return  to  Nature.  There  has 
been  a  constant  conviction  in  men's  minds  from  the  time 
of  the  Stoics  onwards  that  most  of  the  evils  which  afflict 
humanity  have  come  from  our  not  following  "  Nature." 
The  cry  of  "  Everything  according  to  Nature  "  was  soon 
raised  by  educationists.     Ratke  announced  it  as  one  of  his 


5l6  CONCLUSION. 


Benevolence  of  Nature.    Man  disturbs. 

principles.  Comenius  would  base  all  action  on  the  analogy 
of  Nature.  Indeed,  there  has  hardly  ever  been  a  system 
of  education  which  did  not  lay  claim  to  be  the  "natural" 
system.  And  by  "  natural "  has  been  always  understood 
something  different  from  what  is  usual.  What  is  the  notion 
that  produces  this  antithesis  ? 

§  1 8.  When  we  come  to  trace  back  things  to  their  cause 
we  are  wont  to  attribute  them  to  God,  to  Nature,  or  to 
Man.  According  to  the  general  belief,  God  works  in  and 
through  Nature,  and  therefore  the  tendency  of  things  apart 
from  human  agency  must  be  to  good.  This  faith  which 
underlies  all  our  thoughts  and  modes  of  speech,  has  been 
beautifully  expressed  by  Wordsworth — 

"A  gracious  spirit  o'er  this  earth  presides, 
And  in  the  heart  of  man  ;  invisibly 
It  comes  to  works  of  unreproved  delight 
And  tendency  benign  ;  directing  those 
Who  care  not,  know  not,  think  not,  what  they  do." 

Prelude,  v,  adf. 

But  if  the  tendency  of  things  is  to  good,  why  should  the 
usual  be  in  such  strong  contrast  with  '*  the  natural "?  Here 
again  we  may  turn  to  Wordsworth.  After  pointing  to  the 
harmony  of  the  visible  world,  and  declaring  his  faith  that 
"  every  flower  enjoys  the  air  it  breathes,"  he  goes  on — 

"  If  this  belief  from  heaven  be  sent. 
If  this  be  Nature's  holy  plan. 
Have  I  not  reason  to  lament, 
\Vhat  Man  has  made  of  Man  ?  " 

I'his  passage  might  be  taken  as  the  motto  of  Rousseauism. 
According  to  that  philosophy  man  is  the  great  disturber  and 
pen'erter  of  the  natural  order.     Other  animals  simply  follow 


CONCLUSION.  517 


We  arrange  sequences,  capitalise  ideas. 

nature,  but  man  has  no  instinct,  and  is  thus  left  to  find  his 
own  way.  What  is  the  consequence?  A  very  different 
authority  from  Rousseau,  the  poet  Cowper,  tells  us  in  lan- 
guage which  Rousseau  might  have  adopted — 

"  Reasoning  at  every  step  he  treads, 
Man  yet  mistakes  his  way : 
While  meaner  things  whom  instinct  leads, 
Are  seldom  known  to  stray. " 

Man  has  to  investigate  the  sequences  of  Nature,  and  to 
arrange  them  for  himself  In  this  way  he  brings  about  a 
great  number  of  foreseen  results,  but  in  doing  this  he  also 
brings  about  perhaps  even  a  greater  number  of  unforeseen 
results ;  and  alas !  it  turns  out  that  many,  if  not  most,  of 
these  unforeseen  results  are  the  reverse  of  beneficial. 

§  19.  Another  thing  is  observable.  Other  animals  are 
guided  by  instinct ;  we,  for  the  most  part,  are  guided  by 
tradition.  Man,  it  has  been  said,  is  the  only  animal  that 
capitalises  his  discoveries.  If  we  capitalised  nothing  but 
our  discoveries,  this  accumulation  would  be  an  immense 
advantage  to  us ;  but  we  capitalise  also  our  conjectures,  our 
ideals,  our  habits,  and  unhappily,  in  many  cases,  our  blun- 
ders.*    So  a  great  deal  of  action  which  is  purely  mischievous 

•  I  append  a  note  written  from  a  different  point  of  view — "  With 
how  little  wisdom!"  certainly  seems  to  cover  most  departments  of' life. 
Seems  ?  Yes  ;  but  are  we  not  apt  to  overlook  the  wisdom  that  lies  in  the 
great  mass  of  people  ?  In  some  small  department  we  may  have  inves- 
rtgated  further  than  our  class-mates,  and  may  see,  or  think  we  see,  a 
good  deal  of  stupidity  in  what  goes  on.  But  in  most  matters  we  do  not 
investigate  for  ourselves,  but  just  do  the  usual  thing  ;  and  this  seems  to 
work  all  right.  There  must  be  a  good  deal  of  wisdom  underl)'ing  the 
complex  machinery  of  civilised  life.  Carlyle's  "  Mostly  fools  !"  will  by 
no  means  account  for  it.     At  times  one  has  a  dim  perception  that  people 


5l8  CONCLUSION, 


Loss  and  gain  from  tradition. 


in  its  effects,  comes  not  from  our  own  mistakes,  but  from 
those  of  our  ancestors.  The  consequence  is,  that  what  wiih 
our  own  mistakes  and  the  mistakes  we  inherit,  we  sometimes 
go  far  indeed  out  of  the  course  which  "Nature"  has  pi(i- 
scribed  for  us. 

§  20.  The   generation    which   found  a    mouthpiece    in 
Rousseau  had  become  firmly  convinced,  not  indeed  of  its 

in  general  are  not  so  stupid  as  they  seem.  Perhaps  a  long  life  would 
in  the  end  lead  us  to  say  like  Tithonus, 

"  Why  should  a  man  desire  in  any  way 
"To  vary  from  the  kindly  race  of  men?" 
There  is  a  higher  wisdom  than  the  disintegrating  individualism  of 
Carlyle.  Far  better  to  believe  with  Mazzini  in  "the  collective  exist- 
ence of  humanity,"  and  remembering  that  we  work  in  a  medium  fashioned 
for  us  by  the  labours  of  all  who  have  preceded  us,  regard  our  collective 
powers  as  "grafted  upon  those  of  all  foregoing  humanity."  (Mazzini's 
Essays:  Carlyle.)  This  is  the  point  of  view  to  which  Wordsworth 
would  raise  us : — 

"  Among  the  multitudes 
"  Of  that  huge  city,  oftentimes  was  seen 

" the  unity  of  man, 

"  One  spirit  over  ignorance  and  vice 

"  Predominant,  in  good  and  evil  hearts  ; 

"  One  sense  for  moral  judgements,  as  one  eye 

•'  For  the  sun's  light.     The  soul  when  smitten  thus 

•*  By  a  sublime  idea,  whence  soe'er 

"  Vouchsafed  for  union  or  communion,  feeds 

"  On  the  pure  bliss  and  takes  her  rest  with  God." 

Prehide  viij,  adf. 
Tliough  unable  to  share  in  "  the  pure  bliss  "  of  Wordsworth  we  may 
take  refuge  with  Goethe  in  the  thought  that  "  humanity  is  the  true  man," 
and  enjoy  much  to  which  we  have  no  claim  as  individuals.  Tradition, 
blind  tradition,  must  rule  our  actions  through  by  far  the  greatest  part  of 
our  lives ;  and  seeing  we  owe  it  so  much,  we  should  be  tolerant,  even 
gratefal. 


CONCLUSION.  5 19 

Rousseau  for  observing  and  following. 

own  stupidity,  but  of  the  stupidity  of  all  its  predecessors  ; 
and  the  vast  patrimony  bequeathed  to  it  seemed  nothing 
but  lumber  or  worse.  So  Rousseau  found  an  eager  and 
enthusiastic  audience  when  he  proposed  a  return  to  Nature, 
in  other  words,  to  give  up  all  existing  customs,  and  for  the 
most  part  to  do  nothing  and  "  give  Nature  a  chance."  His 
boy  of  twelve  years  old  was  to  have  been  taught  nothing. 
Up  to  that  age  the  great  art  of  education,  says  Rousseau, 
is  to  do  everything  by  doing  nothing.  The  first  part  of 
education  should  be  purely  negative. 

§  21.  Rousseau  tlien  was  the  first  who  escaped  completely 
from  the  notion  of  the  Renascence,  that  man  was  mainly  a 
learning  and  remembering  animal.  But  if  he  is  not  this, 
what  is  he?  We  must  ascertain,  said  Rousseau,  not  a  priori^ 
but  by  observation.  We  need  a  new  art,  the  art  of  observing 
children. 

§  22.  Now  at  length  there  was  hope  for  the  Science  of 
Education.  This  science  must  be  based  on  a  study  of  the 
subject  on  whom  we  have  to  act.  According  to  Locke 
there  is  such  variation  not  only  in  the  circumstances,  but 
also  in  the  personal  peculiaritios  of  individuals,  tliat  general 
laws  either  do  not  exist  or  can  never  be  ascertained.  But 
this  variation  is  no  less  observable  in  the  human  body,  and 
the  art  of  the  physician  has  to  conform  itself  to  a  science 
which  is  still  very  far  from  perfect.  The  physician,  however, 
does  not  despair.  He  carefully  avails  himself  of  such  science 
as  we  now  have,  and  he  makes  a  study  of  the  human  body 
in  order  to  increase  that  science.  When  a  few  more  genera- 
tions have  passed  away,  the  medical  profession  will  very 
likely  smile  at  mistakes  made  by  the  old  Victorian  doctors. 
But,  meantime,  we  profit  by  the  science  of  medicine  in  its 
present  state,  and  we  find  that  this  science  has  considerably 


520  CONCLUSION. 


Rousseau  exposed  "school  learning." 

increased  the  average  duration  of  human  hfe.  We  there- 
fore require  every  practitioner  to  have  made  a  scientific 
study  of  his  calling,  and  to  have  had  a  training  in  both  the 
theory  and  practice  of  it.  The  science  o/  education  cannot 
be  said  to  have  done  much  for  us  at  present,  but  it  will  do 
more  in  the  future,  and  might  do  more  now  if  no  one  were 
allowed  to  teach  before  he  or  she  had  been  trained  in  the 
best  theory  and  practice  we  have.  Since  the  appearance 
of  the  Emile  the  best  educators  have  studied  the  subject 
on  whom  they  had  to  act,  and  they  have  been  learning 
more  and  more  of  the  laws  or  sequences  which  affect  the 
human  mind  and  the  human  body.  The  marvellous  strides 
of  science  in  every  other  department  encourages  us  to  hope 
that  it  will  make  great  advances  in  the  field  of  education 
where  it  is  still  so  greatly  needed.  Perhaps  the  day  may 
come  when  a  Pestalozzi  may  be  considered  even  by  his  con- 
temporaries on  an  equality  with  a  Napoleon,  and  the  human 
race  may  be  willing  to  give  to  the  art  of  instruction  the 
same  amount  of  time,  money,  thought,  and  energy,  which 
in  our  day  have  been  devoted  with  such  tremendous  suc- 
cess to  the  art  of  destruction.  It  is  already  dawning  on  the 
general  consciousness  that  in  education  as  in  physical 
science  "  we  conquer  Nature  by  obeying  her,"  and  we  are 
learning  more  and  more  how  to  obey  her. 

§  23.  Rousseau's  great  work  was  first,  to  expose  the  ab- 
surdities of  the  school-room,  and  second,  to  set  the  educator 
on  studying  the  laws  of  nature  in  the  human  mind  and 
body.  He  also  drew  attention  to  the  child's  restless 
activity.  He  would  also  (like  Locke  before  him),  make  the 
young  learner  his  own  teacher. 

§  24.  There  is  another  way  in  which  the  appearance  of 
the   Emile   was,   as    the    Germans   say,    "  epoch-making." 


CONCLUSION.  521 


Function  of  "things"  in  education. 

From  the  time  of  the  earliest  Innovators,  we  have  seen  that 
"  Things  not  Words,"  had  been  the  war-cry  of  a  strong 
party  of  Reformers.  But  things  had  been  considered 
merely  as  a  superior  means  of  instruction.  Rousseau  first 
pointed  out  the  intimate  relation  that  exists  between  children 
and  the  material  world  around  them.  Children  had  till  then 
been  thought  of  only  as  immature  and  inferior  men.  Since 
his  day  an  English  poet  has  taught  us  that  in  some  ways 
the  man  is  far  inferior  to  the  child,  "  the  things  which  we 
have  seen  we  now  can  see  no  more,"  and  that 

"  nothing  can  bring  back  the  hour 
"  Of  splendour  in  the  grass,  of  glory  in  the  flower." 

Rousseau  had  not  Wordsworth's  gifts,  but  he,  too,  observed 
that  childhood  is  the  age  of  strong  impressions  from  without 
and  that  its  material  surroundings  affect  it  much  more 
acutely  than  they  will  in  after  life.  Which  of  us  knows  as 
much  about  our  own  house  and  furniture  as  our  children 
know  ?  Still  more  remarkable  is  the  sympathy  children  have 
with  animals.  If  a  cat  comes  into  a  room  where  there  are 
grown  people  and  also  a  child,  which  sees  the  cat  first?  which 
observes  it  most  accurately  ?  Now,  this  intimate  relation  of 
the  child  with  its  surroundings  plays  a  most  important  part 
in  its  education.  The  educator  may,  if  so  minded,  ignore 
this  altogether,  and  stick  to  grammar,  dates,  and  county 
towns,  but  if  he  does  so  the  child's  real  education  will  not 
be  much  affected  by  him.  Rousseau  saw  this  clearly,  and 
wished  to  use  " things  "  not  for  instruction  but  foi  educa- 
tion.    Their  special  function  was  to  train  the  senses. 

§  25.  Perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  of  Rousseau  that 
he  was  the  first  who  gave  up  thinking  of  the  child  as  a 
being  whose  chief  faculty  was  the  faculty  of  remembering, 


522  CONCLUSION. 


"  New  Education "  started  by  Rousseau. 

and  thought  of  him  rather  as  a  being  who  feels  and  reflects, 
acts  and  invents. 

§  26  But  if  the  thought  may  be  traced  back  to  Rousseau, 
it  was,  as  left  by  him,  quite  crude  or  rather  embryonic. 
Since  his  time  this  conception  of  the  young  has  been  taken 
up  and  moulded  into  a  fair  commencement  of  a  science  of 
education.  This  commencement  is  now  occupying  the 
attention  of  thinkers  such  as  Herbert  Spencer,  and  much 
may  be  expected  from  it  even  in  the  immediate  future. 
For  the  science  so  far  as  it  exists  we  are  indebted  mainly 
to  the  two  Reformers  with  whom  I  will  conclude — Pestalozzi 
and  Froebel. 

§  27.  Pestalozzi,  Hke  Comenius  more  than  too  years 
before  him,  conceived  of  education  for  all.  "  Every  human 
being,"  said  he,  "  has  a  claim  to  a  judicious  development  of 
his  faculties."     Every  child  must  go  to  school. 

But  the  word  school  includes  a  great  variety  of  institutions. 
The  object  these  have  in  view  differs  immensely.  With 
us  the  main  object  in  some  schools  seems  to  be  to  prepare 
boys  to  compete  at  an  early  age  for  entrance  scholarships 
awarded  to  the  greatest  proficients  in  Latin  and  Greek.  In 
other  schools  the  object  is  to  turn  the  children  out  "good 
scholars  "  in  another  sense ;  that  is,  the  school  is  held  to  be 
successful  when  the  boys  and  girls  acquire  skill  in  the  arts 
of  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic,  and  can  remember  a 
number  of  facts — facts  of  history,  of  geography,  and  even  of 
natural  science.  So  the  common  notion  is  that  what  is 
wanted  in  the  way  of  education  depends  entirely  on  the 
child's  social  position.  There  still  linger  among  us  notions 
derived  from  the  literary  men  of  the  Renascence.  We  still 
measure  all  children  by  their  literary  and  mnemonic  attain- 
ments.    We  still  consider  knowledge  of  Latin  and  Greek 


CONCLUSION,  523 

Drawing;  out.    Man  and  the  other  animals. 

the  highest  kind  of  knowledge.  Children  are  sent  to  school 
that  they  may  not  be  ignorant.*  Pestalozzi,  who  had 
studied  Rousseau,  entirely  denied  all  this.  He  required 
that  the  school-coach  should  be  turned  and  started  in  a 
new  direction.  The  main  object  of  the  school  was  not  to 
teach,  but  to  develop,  not  to  put  in  but  to  draw  out. 

§  28.  The  study  of  nature  shows  us  that  every  animal 
comes  into  the  world  with  certain  faculties  or  capabilities. 
There  are  a  set  of  circumstances  which  will  develop  these 
capabilities  and  make  the  most  of  them.  There  are  other 
circumstances  which  would  impede  this  development, 
decrease  it,  or  even  prevent  it  altogether.  All  other 
animals  have  this  development  secured  for  them  by  their 
ordinary  environment :  but  Man,  with  far  higher  capacities, 
and  with  immeasurably  greater  faculties  both  for  good  and 
evil,  is  left  far  more  to  his  own  resources  than  the  other 
animals.  Placed  in  an  almost  endless  variety  of  circum- 
stances we  have  to  ascertain  how  the  development  of  our 
offspring  may  best  be  brought  about.  We  have  to  consider 
what  are  the  inborn  faculties  of  our  children,  and  also  what 
aids  and  what  hinders  their  development.  When  we  have 
arrived  at  this  knowledge  we  must  educate  them  by  placing 

- 

*  Professor  Jebb  has  lately  given  us  the  main  ideas  of  the  great 
Scholar  Erasmus.  "In  all  his  work,"  says  the  Professor,  "he  had  an 
educational  aim.  .  .  .  The  evils  of  his  age,  in  Church,  in  State,  in 
t  he  daily  lives  of  men,  seemed  to  him  to  have  their  roots  in  ignormue  ; 
ignorance  of  what  Christianity  meant,  ignorance  of  what  the  Bible  taught, 
ignorance  of  what  the  noblest  and  most  gifted  minds  of  the  past, 
whether  Christian  or  pngan,  had  contributed  to  the  instruction  of  the 
human  race."  (Rede  Lecture,  1890.)  Erasmus  evidently  fell  into  the 
error  against  which  Pestalozzi  and  Froebel  lift  up  their  voices,  often  in 
vain — the  error  of  forgetting  that  knowledge  is  of  no  avail  without  in- 
telligence.    What  is  the  use  of  lighting  additional  candles  for  the  blind  ? 


524  CONCLUSION. 


Intuition.    Man  an  organism,  a  doer  and  creator. 

them  in  the  best  circumstances  in  our  power,  and  then 
superintending,  judiciously  and  lovingly,  the  development  of 
their  faculties  and  of  their  higher  nature. 

§  29.  There  is,  said  Pestalozzi,  only  one  way  in  which 
faculty  can  be  developed,  and  that  is  by  exercise ;  so  his 
system  sought  to  encourage  the  activities  of  children,  and  in 
this  respect  he  was  surpassed,  as  we  shall  see,  by  Froebel. 
"  Dead  "  knowledge,  as  it  has  been  called — the  knowledge 
commonly  acquired  for  examinations,  our  school-knowledge, 
in  fact — was  despised  by  Pestalozzi  as  it  had  been  by  Locke 
and  Rousseau  before  him.  In  its  place  he  would  put 
knowledge  acquired  by  "  intuition,"  by  the  spring  of  the 
learner's  own  intelligence. 

§  30.  The  conception  of  every  child  as  an  organism  and 
of  education  as  the  process  by  which  the  development  of 
that  organism  is  promoted  is  found  first  in  Pestalozzi,  but  it 
was  more  consistently  thought  out  by  Froebel.  There  is, 
said  Froebel,  a  divine  idea  for  every  human  being,  for  we 
are  all  God's  offspring.  The  object  of  the  education  of  a 
human  being  is  to  further  the  development  of  his  divine 
idea.  This  development  is  attainable  only  through  action  ; 
for  the  development  of  every  organism  depends  on  its  self- 
activity.  Self-activity  then,  activity  "with  a  will,"  is  the 
main  thing  to  be  cared  for  in  education.  The  educator 
has  to  direct  the  children's  activity  in  such  a  way  that  it 
may  satisfy  their  instincts,  especially  the  formative  and 
creative  instincts.  The  child  from  his  earliest  years  is  to  be 
treated  as  a  doer  and  even  a  creator. 

§  31.  Now,  at  last,  we  have  arrived  at  the  complete 
antithesis  between  the  old  education  and  the  New.  The 
old  education  had  one  object,  and  that  was  learning.  Man 
was  a  being  who  learnt  and  remembered.     Education  was  a 


CONCLUSION.  525 


Antithesis  of  Old  and  New  Education. 

process  by  which  he  learnt,  at  first  the  languages  and 
literatures  of  Rome  and  Greece  only  ;  but  as  time  went  on 
the  curriculum  was  greatly  extended.  The  New  Education 
trea'-.s  the  human  being  not  so  much  a  learner  as  a  doer  and 
creator.  The  educator  no  longer  fixes  his  eyes  on  the 
object — the  knowledge,  but  on  the  subject — the  being  to  be 
educated.  The  success  of  the  education  is  not  determined 
by  what  the  educated  know,  but  by  what  they  do  and  what 
they  are.  They  are  well  educated  when  they  love  what  is 
good,  and  have  had  all  their  faculties  of  mind  and  body 
properly  developed  to  do  it. 

§  32.  The  New  Education  then  is  "  passive,  following," 
and  must  be  based  on  the  study  of  human  nature.  When 
we  have  ascertained  what  are  the  faculties  to  be  developed 
we  must  consider  further  how  to  foster  the  self-activity  that 
will  develop  them. 

§  33-  We  have  travelled  far  from  Dr.  Johnson,  who 
asserted  that  education  was  as  well  known  as  it  ever  could 
be.  Some  of  us  are  more  inclined  to  assert  that  in  his  day 
education  was  not  invented.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are 
those  who  belittle  the  New  Education  and  endeavour  to 
show  that  in  it  there  is  nothing  new  at  all.  As  it  seems  to 
me  a  revolution  of  the  most  salutary  kind  was  made  by  the 
thinkers  who  proposed  basing  education  on  a  study  of  the 
subject  to  be  educated,  and,  rtiore  than  this,  making  the 
process  a  "  following "  process  with  the  object  of  drawing 
out  self-activity. 

§  34.  This  change  of  object  must  in  the  end  be  fruitful  in 
changes  of  every  kind.  But  as  yet  we  are  only  gropixig  our 
way  ;  and,  if  I  may  give  a  caution  which,  in  this  country  at 
least,  is  quite  superfluous,  we  should  be  cautious,  and  till  we 
see  our  way  clearly  we  should  try  no  great  experiment  that 
36 


526  CONCLUSION. 


Drill  needed.    What  the  Thinkers  do  for  us. 

would  destroy  our  connexion  with  the  past.  Most  of  our 
predecessors  thought  only  of  knowledge.  By  a  reaction 
some  of  our  New  Educationists  seem  to  despise  knowledge. 
But  knowledge  is  necessary,  and  without  some  knowledge 
development  would  be  impossible.  We  probably  cannot 
do  too  much  to  assist  development  and  encourage  "  intui- 
tion," but  there  is,  perhaps,  some  danger  of  our  losing  sight 
of  truths  which  schoolroom  experience  would  bring  home  to 
us.  Even  the  clearest  "  concepts "  get  hazy  again  and 
totally  unfit  for  use,  unless  they  are  permanently  fixed  in 
the  mind  by  repetition,  which  to  be  effective  must  to  some 
extent  take  the  form  of  drill.  The  practical  man,  even  the 
crammer,  has  here  mastered  a  truth  of  the  teaching  art 
which  the  educationist  is  prone  to  overlook.  And  there  are, 
no  doubt,  other  things  which  the  practical  man  can  teach. 
But  the  great  thinkers  would  raise  us  to  a  higher  standing- 
point  from  which  we  may  see  much  that  will  make  the  right 
road  clearer  to  us,  and  lead  us  to  press  forward  in  it  with 
good  heart  and  hope. 


vmi8. 


APPENDIX. 


History  of  this  Book. — Some  wise  man  has  advised  us  never  to 
find  fault  with  ourselves,  for,  says  he,  you  may  always  depend  on  your 
friends  to  do  it  for  you.  So,  having  looked  through  the  proofs  of  this 
book,  I  abstain  from  fault-finding.  I  fancy  I  could  find  fault  more 
effectively  than  my  friends  or  even  my  professional  critics.  As  the 
Spectator's  "Correspondent  in  an  easy  chair"  says  very  truly",  the 
author  has  read  his  book  many  times ;  the  critic  has  read  it  at  most  once. 
In  fact  the  critic  gives  to  the  book  (in  some  cases  to  the  subject  of  the 
book  also)  no  greater  number  of  hours  than  the  author  has  given  months, 
perhaps  years.  Partiality  blinds  the  author,  no  doubt,  but  unless  he  is 
a  fatuous  person  it  does  not  blind  him  so  much  as  his  haste  blinds  the 
critic  An  author  of  note  said  of  a  book  of  his,  which  had  been  much 
criticised:  "The  book  has  faults,  but  I  am  the  only  person  who  has 
discovered  them,"  to  which  a  friend  maliciously  appended:  "  Yox  faults 
read  merits."  Whatever  was  the  truth  here,  I  am  inclined  to  think 
the  author  has  the  best  chance  of  putting  his  finger  on  the  weak 
places. 

But  if  I  see  weaknesses  in  the  foregoing  book,  why  do  I  not  make  it 
better  ?  Just  for  two  reasons :  to  improve  the  book  I  should  have  to 
spend  more  time  on  it  and  more  money.  The  more  I  read  and  think 
about  any  one  of  my  subjects,  the  more  I  want  to  go  on  reading  and 
thinking.  Perhaps  I  hear  of  an  old  book  that  has  escaped  my  notice, 
or  a  new  book  comes  out,  sometimes  an  important  book  like  Pinloche's 
Basedow.  So  I  can  never  finish  an  essay  to  my  satisfaction,  and  the 
only  way  of  getting  it  off  my  hands  is  to  send  the  copy  to  the  printer. 
By  the  time  the  proof  comes  in  there  is  something  that  I  should  like  to 
add  or  alter  ;  but  then  the  dread  of  a  long  bill  for  "  corrections  "  restrains 
me.  However,  now  the  book  is  all  in  type,  I  see  here  and  there  some- 
thing that  suggests  a  note  by  way  of  explanation  or  addition,  so  I  add 
this  appendix.  Taking  a  hint  from  one  of  my  favourite  authors,  Sir 
/Vrthur  Helps,  I  throw  my  notes  into  the  form  of  a   dialogue,   but 


528  ,  APPENDIX. 

being  entirely  destitute  of  Helps's  dramatic  skill  I  confine  myself  to 
E.  (the  Essayist)  and  A.  (Amicus),  who  is  only  too  clearly  an  alter  ego. 
A.  So  the  Americans  have  kept  alive  your  old  book  for  you,  and  at 
last  you  have  rewritten  it.  You  at  least  have  no  reason  to  complain 
that  there  is  no  international  copyright.  Your  book  would  have  been 
forgotten  long  ago  if  a  lady  in  Cincinnati  had  not  persuaded  an  American 
publisher  there  to  reprint  it.  E.  Yes,  I  very  readily  allow  that  I  have 
been  a  gainer.  The  Americans  have  done  more  for  me  than  my  own 
countrymen.  To  be  sure  neither  have  "  praised  with  the  hands  "  (as 
Moliere's/r^,r5eMr  has  it) ;  and,  in  money  at  least,  the  book  has  never 
paid  me  its  expenses ;  but  three  American  publishers  have  done  for 
themselves  what  no  Englishman  would  do  for  me,  viz.,  publish  at  their 
own  risk.  In  1868  when  my  MS.  was  ready,  I  went  to  my  old  friend, 
Mr.  Alexander  Macmillan  ;  but  he  would  not  even  look  at  it.  "  Books 
on  education,"  said  he,  "don't  pay.  Why  there  is  Thring's  Education 
and  School,  a  capital  book  "  (I  assented  heartily,  for  I  was  very  fond  of 
it),  "  well,  that  doesn't  sell."  I  was  forced  to  admit  that  in  that  case  I 
had  little  chance.  "But,"  I  said,  "I  suppose  you  would  publish  at 
my  risk?"  "  No,"  said  Mr.  Macmillan.  "  The  author  is  never  satisfied 
when  his  book  doesn't  pay."  "What  would  you  advise?"  I  asked. 
"  I'll  give  you  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Mr.  William  Longman,"  said 
Mr.  Macmillan  ;  "  I  dare  say  he'll  publish  for  you."  With  this  letter  I 
Went  to  Mr.  William  I^ongman  (who  has  since  those  days  been  gathered 
to  his  ancestors,  formerly  of  Paternoster  Row).  Mr.  Longman  said  he 
would  put  the  MS.  in  the  hands  of  his  reader.  If  the  reader's  report 
was  favourable  the  firm  would  offer  me  terms  ;  if  not,  they  would  pub- 
ish  for  me  on  commission.  I  sent  the  MS.-  accordingly,  and  soon  after 
I  had  a  letter  from  the  firm  offering  to  publish  "on  commission." 
When  the  book  was  in  type,  Mr.  Longman  advised  me  to  have  only 
500  printed,  and  to  publish  at  a  high  price.  "I  should  charge  9J.,"  he 
said.  "Very  few  people  will  buy,  and  they  won't  consider  the  price." 
This  was  not  my  opinion,  but  in  such  a  matter  I  felt  that  the  weight  o 
authority  was  enormously  against  me.  So  I  consented  to  the  publish* 
ing  price  of  7j.  dd.  And  at  first  it  seemed  that  Mr.  Longman  was 
right — at  least  about  the  small  number  of  purchasers.  £Tfi  was  spent 
in  advertising,  and  the  book  was  very  generally  and  I  may  say  very 
favourably  reviewed  ;  but  when  about  100  copies  had  been  sold,  it 
almost  entirely  ceased  "  to  move."  I  think  13  copies  were  sold  in  six 
months.  So  to  get  rid  of  the  remainder  of  my  500  copies  (some  300 
of  ihem)  I  put  down  the  price  to  3*.  fid.     Then  it  seemed  that  Mr. 


APPENDIX.  529 

Longman  had  made  a  mistake  about  the  price.  Without  another 
advertisement  the  300  were  sold  in  a  month  or  two.  Some  time  after, 
I  heard  that  the  book  had  been  republished  in  Cincinnati,  and  on  my 
writing  to  the  publishers,  Messrs.  Robert  Clarke  &  Co.,  they  presented 
me  with  half-a-dozen  copies.  This  proved  to  be  a  perfect  reprint, 
which  is  more  than  I  can  say  of  those  which  years  afterwards  weie 
Issued  by  Mr.  Bardeen  and  Messrs.  Kellogg.  I  have  therefore  from 
lime  10  time  purchased  from  Messrs.  Clarke  and  imported  the  copies 
(I  suppose  about  1500  in  all)  that  have  been  wanted  for  the  English 
market.  I  hope  these  details  do  not  bore  you.  A.  Not  at  all.  The 
history  of  any  book  interests  me,  and  your  book  has  had  some  odd 
experiences.  It  has  lived,  I  own^  much  longer  than  I  expected,  and 
for  this  you  have  to  thank  the  Americans.  A.  In  my  case  the  absence 
of  international  copjrright  has  done  no  harm  certainly ;  but  after  all 
copyrighthas  itsadvantages, international  copyright  included.  Specialists 
suffer  severely  from  the  want  of  it.  Perhaps  the  "  special  "  public  in 
this  country  is  so  small  that  an  important  book  for  it  cannot  be  published. 
If  to  our  special  public  were  joined  the  special  public  of  the  U.S.,  the 
book  might  be  fairly  remunerative  to  its  author.  Take,  e.g.,  Joseph 
Payne's  writings.  These  would  have  been  lost  to  the  world  had  not 
Dr.  Payne  published  them  as  an  act  of  filial  piety.  With  an  inter- 
national copyright  these  works  would  be  very  good  property.  E.  You 
think  then  that  in  the  long  run  "honesty  is  the  best  policy  "  even 
internationally?  A.  I  must  say  my  opinion  does  incline  in  that 
direction. 

Class  Matches  (p  42). — A.  I  think  you  have  had  a  good  deal  to 
do  with  class  matches  ?  E.  Yes.  One  must  be  careful  not  to  overdo 
them,  but  I  have  found  an  occasional  match  a  capital  way  of  en- 
livening school-work.  Some  time  before  the  match  takes  place  the 
master  lets  the  two  best  boys  pick  up  sides,  the  second  boy  having  the 
first  choice.  The  subject  for  the  match  is  then  arranged,  and  to  prevent 
disputes  the  area  must  be  carefully  defined.  Moreover,  there  m  ust  be 
no  opportunity  for  the  boys  to  ask  questions  about  unimportant  details 
that  are  likely  to  have  escaped  attention.  When  the  match  is  to  take 
place  each  boy  should  come  provided  with  a  set  of  written  questions, 
and  whenever  a  boy  shows  himself  ignorant  of  the  righ  answer  to  a 
question  of  his  own  he  must  be  held  to  have  failed  even  if  his  opponent 
is  ignorant  also.  At  Harrow,  where  I  had  a  class-room  ("  school- 
room "  as  it  is  there  called)  to  myself,  I  used  to  work  these  matches 
very  fHuxessfully  in  German.     Say  Heine's  Lorelei  had  been  learnt  by 


53©  APPENDIX. 

heart.  I  set  ai  a  subject  for  a  match  the  plurals  of  the  substantives  and 
the  past  participles  of  the  verbs  in  the  poem.  Or  the  boys  had  to  make 
up  for  themselves  and  number  on  paper  a  set  of  short  sentences  in 
which  only  words  which  occurred  in  the  poem  were  used.  In  this  last 
rase  the  questioner  handed  in  to  the  master  his  paper  with  both  the 
English  and  the  German  on  it,  and  the  master  gave  the  other  iide  the 
English,  of  which  they  had  to  write  the  German.  The  details  of  such 
matches  may  of  course  be  varied  to  any  extent  so  long  as  the  subject 
set  is  quite  definite.  The  scoring  will  be  found  best  at  the  lower  end, 
so  that  a  match  stimulates  those  who  need  stimulus.  A.  What  did  you 
call  "  scratch  pairs  ?"  E.  Oh,  that  was  a  device  for  getting  up  a  little 
harmless  excitement.  Knowing  the  capacities  of  my  boys,  I  arranged 
them  in  pairs,  the  best  boy  and  the  worst  forming  one  pair,  the  next 
best  and  next  worst  the  second  pair,  &c.,  &c.  I  then  asked  a  series  of 
questions  to  which  all  had  to  write  short  answers.  I  then  looked  over 
the  answers  and  marked  them.  Finally  the  marks  of  each  pair  were 
added  together,  and  I  announced  the  order  in  which  the  pairs  "came 
in."  It  was  really  "anybody's  race"  for  neither  I  nor  anyone  could 
predict  the  result.  If  the  number  of  boys  was  an  odd  number  the  boy 
in  the  middle  fought  for  his  own  hand  and  had  his  marks  doubled. 
Perhaps  on  the  whole  he  had  the  best  chance. 

Competition. — A.  There  were  then  some  forms  of  emulation 
which  you  did  not  set  your  face  against  ?  E.  There  were  many,  but  I 
preferred  emulation  which  stimulated  the  idle  rather  than  the 
industrious.  Most  "  prizes  "  act  only  on  those  who  would  be  better 
without  them.  A.  Do  you  see  no  danger  in  encouraging  rivalry 
between  different  bodies  ?  The  strife  between  parties  has  often  been 
more  virulent  than  the  strife  between  individuals.  E.  Yes,  I  know 
well  that  in  exciting  party-feeling  one  is  playing  with  edged  tools  ; 
and  besides  this,  a  boy  who  for  any  cause  is  thought  a  disgrace  to  his 
side,  is  very  likely  to  be  bullied  by  it.  Let  me  tell  you  of  one  form  of 
stimulus  which  seemed  to  work  well  and  was  free  from  most  of  the 
objections  you  are  thinking  of.  When  I  had  a  small  school  of  my  own  in 
which  there  were  only  young  boys,  I  put  up  in  the  schoolroom  a  liet 
of  the  boys'  names  in  alphabetical  order  with  blank  spaces  after  ths 
names.  I  looked  over  the  boys'  written  work  very  carefully,  and 
whenever  I  came  across  any  written  exercise  evidently  done  with  great 
painstaking  and  for  that  boy  with  more  than  ordinary  success,  I  marked 
it  with  a  G,  and  I  put  up  the  G  in  one  of  the  spaces  after  that  boy's 
name   in   the   list    hung   up   in   the   school-room.     When    the   scnooJ 


APPENDIX.  531 

collectively  had  obtained  a  fixed  number  of  G's  we  had  an  extra  half- 
holiday.  The  announcement  of  a  G  was  therefore  always  hailed  with 
delight.  A.  I  see  one  thing  in  favour  of  that  device.  You  might  by 
a  G  give  encouragement  to  a  boy  when  he  has  just  begun  to  try.  This 
is  often  a  turning-point  in  a  boy's  life  ;  and  a  master's  early  recognition 
of  effort  may  do  much  to  strengthen  into  a  habit  what  might,  without 
the  recognition,  have  proved  nothing  but  a  passing  whim.  At  the  very 
least,  all  such  devices  have  one  good  effect ;  they  break  the  monotony 
of  school-work  ;  and  monotony  is  much  more  wearing  to  the  young 
than  it  is  to  their  elders.  Can  you  tell  me  of  others  who  have  used 
such  plans  ?  E.  A  friend  of  mine  who  has  a  genius  for  inventing 
school  plans  of  all  kinds  and  marvellous  energy  in  working  them,  had  a 
boarding-house  in  connexion  with  a  large  school.  The  marks  of  every 
boy  in  the  school  are  given  out  for  each  week.  My  friend  gives  a 
supper  at  the  end  of  the  quarter  if  the  average  marks  of  his  house 
come  up  to  a  certain  standard.  He  puts  up  each  week  a  list  of 
"  Furtherers,"  i.e.,  of  the  boys  who  have  surpassed  the  average,  and  of 
"Hinderers," /.«.,  of  boys  who  have  fallen  below  it.  A.  No  doubt 
this  is  an  effective  spur,  but  I  should  fear  it  would  in  practice  deliver 
the  hindermost  to  Satan.  The  boy  whom  nature  has  made  a 
"  hinderer  "  is  likely  to  have  by  no  means  a  good  time  in  that  house. 
Do  you  know  if  such  devices  as  you  have  mentioned  are  common  in 
schools  ?  E.  I  really  can't  say.  I  have  seen  in  American  school  papers 
accounts  of  class  matches.  In  the  New  England  Journal  of  Education 
(22nd  November,  1888)  Mr.  A.  E.  Winship  gave  an  account  of  some 
inter-class  matches  at  Milwaukee.  There  is  a  match  between  three 
classes,  say  in  penmanship.  If  there  are  seventy  boys  in  the  three 
classes  together,  each  boy  draws  a  number  from  one  to  seventy,  and 
puts  not  his  name  but  his  number  on  his  paper.  The  same  lesson  is  set 
for  all.  The  papers  are  collected,  divided  into  three  equal  heaps,  and 
looked  over  and  marked  by  three  masters.  Finally  the  average  of  each 
class  is  taken.  In  mental  arithmetic  each  class  chooses  its  own 
champions.  This  would  be  fun,  but  would  do  nothing  for  the  lower  end 
of  the  class.  The  principal  of  McDonough  School  No.  12,  N?w 
Oihans,  Mr.  H.  E.  Chambers,  gives  an  account  in  the  New  York 
School  Journal  (8th  December,  1888),  how  he  organised  sixteen  boys 
into  teams  of  four,  putting  the  best  and  worst  together  as  I  did  in 
making  up  scratch  pairs.  The  match  between  these  teams  was  to  see 
which  could  get  the  best  record  for  the  month.  As  Mr.  Chambers  tells 
us  the  sharper  boys  managed  with  more  success  than  the  master  to  lei 


532  APPENDIX. 

light  into  the  dull  intellects  of  boys  in  the  same  team  with  them. 
This  union  of  interests  between  the  "  strong  "  and  the  "weak  "  as  the 
French  call  them,  is  a  very  good  feature  in  combats  of  sides. 

The  Jesuits. — A.  What  is  it  that  interests  you  so  much  in  the 
Jesuits?  E.  Two  things.  First,  the  Jesuit  shows  the  effects  of  \ 
definitely  planned  and  rigidly  carried  out  system  of  education  ;  and 
next,  in  such  a  society  you  find  a  continuity  of  effort  which  is  and  must 
be  wanting  in  the  life  of  an  individual.  If  ever  "we  feel  that  we  are 
greater  than  we  know  "  it  is  when  we  can  think  of  ourselves  as  parts  of 
a  society,  a  society  which  existed  long  before  us,  and  will  last  after  us. 
For  instance,  it  is  a  great  thing  to  be  connected  with  an  historical 
school  such  as  Harrow.  We  then  realise,  as  the  school's  poet,  Mr. 
E.  E.  Bowen,  has  said,  that  we  are  no  mere  "sons  of  yesterday,"  and 
thinking  of  the  connection  between  the  mighty  dead  and  the  old  school 
we  join  heartily  in  the  chorus  of  the  school  song  : — 

"  Their  glory  thus  shall  circle  us 
"Till  time  be  done." 

A.  I  verily  believe  you  expect  your  share  in  this  "glory"  for 
having  invented  the  Harrow  "  Blue  Book,"  which  is  likely  to  outlive 
Educational  Reformers;  but  if  the  boys  ever  thought  of  the  inventor 
(which  they  don't)  they  would  naturally  suppose  that  he  was  some 
contemporary  of  Cadmus  or  Deucalion.  Sic  transit!  But  what  has 
this  to  do  with  the  Jesuits  ?  E.  Only  this,  that  by  corporate  life  you 
secure  a  continuity  of  effort.  There  is  to  me  something  very  attractive 
in  the  idea  of  a  teaching  society.  How  such  a  society  might  capitalise 
its  discoveries !  The  Roman  Church  has  shown  a  genius  for  such 
societies,  witness  the  Jesuits  and  the  Christian  Brothers.  The 
experience  of  centuries  mu§t  have  taught  them  much  that  we  could 
learn  of  them.  A.  The  Jesuits  seem  to  me  to  be  without  the  spirit  of 
investigators  and  discoverers.  The  rules  of  their  Society  do  not  permit 
of  their  learning  anything  or  forgetting  anything.  Ignatius  Loyola  was 
a  wonderful  man,  but  he  must  have  been  superhuman  if  he  could 
legislate  for  all  time.  By  the  way,  I  see  you  say  the  first  edition  of  the 
/'o/?^  was  published  in  1585.  What  is  your  authority?  E.  I  took 
the  date  from  the  copy  in  the  British  Museum.  According  to  a  volume 
published  by  Rivingtons  in  1838  (Constitutiones  Societatis  Jesu)  the 
Constitutions  were  first  printed  in  1558,  but  were  not  divulged  till  "  the 
celebrated  suit  of  the  MM.  Lionel  and  Father  La  Valette"  in  1761. 

Alexander's  Doctrinale  (p.  80). — A.  I  thought  you  made  it  a  rule 
tc  give  only  what  was  useful.     What  can  be  the  use  of  the  quotation* 


APPENDIX,  533 

which  your  old  Appendix  contained  "  from  a  celebrated  grammar  v\  ritten 
by  a  Franciscan  of  Brittany  about  the  middle  of  the  13th  century  "  ? 
E.  Perhaps  I  had  an  attack  of  antiquarianism  ;  but  I  rather  think  the 
quotations  were  given  in  order  to  shew  our  progress  since  those  days. 
The  Teachers'  art  of  making  easy  things  difficult  is  well  exemplified  in 
Alexander's  rules  for  the  first  declension.  But  life  is  shc.rt,  and  folly  h 
best  forgotten. 

Lily's  Grammar  (p.  80).  A.  Would  not  your  last  remark  rule  out 
what  you  told  us  about  Lily's  Grammar?  E.  As  regards  Lily's 
assertion,  "  Genders  of  nouns  be  7,"  it  certainly  would.  Surely  nobody 
but  a  writer  of  school-books  would  ever  have  thought  of  making  a 
"gender  "  out  of  "  hie,  haec,  hoc,  felix  "  !  But  the  absurdity  did  not 
originate  with  Lily.  He  was  all  for  simplification,  and  though  there 
were  some  changes  in  the  Eton  Latin  Grammar  which  succeeded  the 
"  Short  introduction  of  Grammar  "  known  as  Lily's  Grammar,  these 
changes  were,  some  of  them  at  least,  by  no  means  improvements.  The 
old  book  put  a  before  al/  ablatives  and  taught  that  "  by  a  kingdom  " 
was  a  regno.  If  this  was  not  any  better  than  teaching  that  domino  by 
itself  was  "  by  a  Lord,"  it  was  at  least  no  worse.  The  optative  of  the 
old  book  ('*  Utinam  sim  I  pray  God  I  be  ;  Utinam  Essem  would  God 
I  were,  &c.")  and  the  subjunctive  ("  Cum  Sim  When  I  am,  &c.,")  were 
better  than  the  oracular  statement  which  perplexed  my  youth,  "The  sub- 
junctive mood  is  declined  like  the  potential."  How  often  I  said  those 
words,  and  being  of  an  inquiring  mind  wondered  what  on  earth  "  the 
subjunctive  mood  "  was  1 

Colet.  E.  The  passage  I  refer  to  on  page  80  from  Colet  is  in  a 
little  book  in  the  B.M.  It  is  "JoannisColeti  theologi,  olim  Decani  Divi 
Pauli,  editio,  una  cum  quibusdam  G.  Lilii  Grammatices  Rudimentis,  &c. 
Antuerpise  1535.  After  the  accidence  of  the  eight  parts  of  speech,  he 
says  : — "  Of  these  eight  parts  of  speech  in  order  well  construed,  be 
made  reasons  and  sentences,  and  long  orations.  But  how  and  in  what 
manner,  and  with  what  constructions  of  words,  and  all  the  varieties, 
and  diversities,  and  changes  in  Latin  speech  (which  be  innumerable),  il 
any  man  will  know,  and  by  that  knowledge  attain  to  understand  Latin 
books,  and  to  speak  and  to  write  clean  Latin,  let  him,  above  all,  busily 
learn  and  read  good  Latin  authors  of  chosen  poets  and  orators,  and  note 
wisely  how  they  wrote  and  spake  ;  and  study  always  to  follow  them, 
desiring  none  other  rules  but  their  examples.  For  in  the  beginning  men 
spake  not  Latin  because  such  rules  were  made,  but,  contrariwise,  because 
men  spake  such  Latin,  upon  that  followed  the  rules,  and  were  made. 


534  APPENDIX. 

That  is  to  say,  Latin  speech  was  before  the  rules,  and  not  the  rules 
before  the  Latin  speech.  Wherefore,  well-beloved  masters  and  teachers 
of  grammar,  after  the  parts  of  speech  sufficiently  known  in  our  schools, 
read  and  expound  plainly  unto  your  scholars  good  authors,  and  show  to 
them  [in]  every  word,  and  in  every  sentence,  what  they  shall  note  and 
observe,  warning  them  busily  to  follow  and  do  like  both  in  writing  and 
in  speaking  ;  and  be  to  them  your  own  self  also  speaking  with  them  the 
pure  Latin  very  present,  and  leave  the  rules ;  for  reading  of  good  books, 
diligent  information  of  learned  masters,  studious  advertence  and  taking 
heed  of  learners,  hearing  eloquent  men  speak,  and  finally,  busy  imitation 
with  tongue  and  pen,  moreavaileth  shortly  to  get  the  true  eloquent  speech, 
than  all  the  traditions,  rules,  and  precepts  of  masters. "  This  passage  is, 
I  find,  well  known.  It  is  given  in  Knights'  Life  of  Colet  and  is  referred 
to  by  Mr.  Seebohm.  Mr.  J.  H.  Lupton,  Colet's  latest  biographer,  has 
kindly  corrected  the  date  for  me  :  it  is  indistinct  in  the  Museum  copy. 

Mulcaster  for  English  (p.  97).  A.  Except  in  Clarke's  edition, 
your  extracts  from  Mulcaster's  Elementarie  have  been  omitted  by  your 
American  reprinters.  E.  So  I  see.  I  should  have  thought  the 
Americans  would  have  been  much  interested  by  this  early  praise  of  our 
common  language.  The  passage  is  certainly  a  very  remarkable  one. 
and  Professor  Masson  has  thought  it  worth  quoting  in  his  Life  of 
Milton.  The  Elementarie  is  a  scarce  book  ;  so  I  will  not  follow  my 
reprinters  in  leaving  out  this  passage  : — "  Is  it  not  a  marvellous  bondage 
to  become  servants  to  one  tongue,  for  learning's  sake,  the  most  part  of 
our  time,  with  loss  of  most  time,  whereas  we  may  have  the  very  same 
treasure  in  oiu:  own  tongue  with  the  gain  of  most  time  ?  our  own 
bearing  the  joyful  title  of  our  liberty  and  freedom,  the  Latin  tongue 
remembering  us  of  our  thraldom  and  bondage?  I  love  Rome,  but 
London  better  ;  I  favour  Italy,  but  England  more  :  I  honour  the  Latin, 
but  I  worship  the  English.  ...  I  honour  foreign  tongues,  but  wish 
my  own  to  be  partaker  of  their  honour.  Knowing  them,  I  wish  my  own 
tongue  to  resemble  their  grace.  I  confess  their  fumiture.and  wish  it  were 
ours.  .  .  .  The  diligent  labour  of  learned  countrymen  did  so  enrich 
diose  tongues,  and  not  the  tongues  themselves  ;  though  they  proved  verj- 
pliable,  as  our  tongue  will  prove,  I  dare  assure  it,  of  knowledge,  if  our 
learned  countrymen  will  put  to  their  labour.  And  why  not,  I  pray  you, 
as  well  in  English  as  either  Latin  or  any  tongue  else  ?  Will  ye  say  it  b 
needless  ?  sure  that  will  not  hold.  If  loss  of  time,  while  ye  be  pilgrims 
to  learning,  by  lingering  about  tongues  be  no  argument  of  need  ;  if  lack 
of  sound  skill  while  the  tongue  distracteth  sense  more  than  half  to  itsel/ 


APPENDIX.  535 

and  that  most  of  all  in  a  simple  student  or  a  silly  wit,  be  no  argument 
of  need,  then  ye  say  somewhat  which  pretend  no  need.  But  because 
we  needed  not  to  lose  any  time  unless  we  listed,  if  we  had  such  a 
vantage,  in  the  course  of  study,  as  we  now  lose  while  we  travail  in 
tongues ;  and  because  our  understanding  also  were  most  full  in  our 
natural  speech,  though  we  know  the  foreign  exceedingly  well — methink 
necessity  itself  doth  call  for  English,  whereby  all  that  gaiety  may  be  had 
at  home  which  makes  us  gaze  so  much  at  the  fine  stranger. "  Among 
various  objections  to  the  use  of  English  which  he  answers,  he  comes  to 
this  one  : — "  But  will  ye  thus  break  off  the  common  conference  with  the 
learned  foreign?"  To  this  his  answer  is  not  very  forcible: — "The 
conference  will  not  cease  while  the  people  have  cause  to  interchange 
dealings,  and  without  the  Latin  it  may  well  be  continued  :  as  in  some 
countries  the  learneder  sort  and  some  near  cousins  to  the  I^atin  itself  do 
already  wean  their  pens  and  tongues  from  the  use  of  the  Latin,  both 
in  written  discourse  and  spoken  disputation,  into  their  own  natural,  and 
yet  no  dry  nurse  being  so  well  appointed  by  the  milch  nurse's  help." 
Further  on  he  says  : — "  The  emperor  Justinian  said,  when  he  made  the 
Institutes  of  force,  that  the  students  were  happy  in  having  such  a  fore- 
deal  \i.e.,  advantage — German  Vortheil\  as  to  hear  him  at  once,  and 
not  to  wait  four  years  first.  And  doth  not  our  languaging  hold  us  back 
four  years  and  that  full,  think  you  ?  .  .  [But  this  is  not  all.]  Our 
best  understanding  is  in  our  natural  tongue,  and  all  our  foreign  learning 
is  applied  to  our  use  by  means  of  our  own  ;  and  without  the  application 
to  particular  use,  wherefore  serves  learning?  .  .  .  [As  for  dis- 
honouring antiquity],  if  we  must  cleave  to  the  eldest  and  not  the  best,  we 
should  be  eating  acorns  and  wearing  old  Adam's  pelts.  But  why  not 
all  in  English,  a  tongue  of  itself  both  deep  in  conceit  and  frank  in 
delivery  ?  I  do  not  think  that  any  language,  be  it  whatsoever,  is  better 
able  to  utter  all  arguments  either  with  more  pith  or  greater  plainness 
than  our  English  tongue  is.  .  .  .  It  is  our  accident  which  restrains 
our  tongue  and  not  the  tongue  itself,  which  will  strain  with  the  strongest 
and  stretch  to  the  furthest,  for  either  government  if  we  were  conquerors, 
or  for  cunning  if  we  were  treasurers  ;  not  any  whit  behind  either  the 
subtle  Greek  for  crouching  close,  or  the  stately  Latin  for  spreading 
fair." 

Marcel's  "  Axiomatic  Truths." — A.  I  have  seen  Marcel  referred 
to  as  a  great  authority  in  education,  but  I  look  in  vain  for  his  name  in 
Kiddle's  Cyclopaedia  and  in  Sonnenschein's.  E.  You  would  be  more 
successful  in  Buisson's.     There  I  see  that  Claude  Marcel  was  bom  at 


536  '   APPENDIX. 

Paris  in  1793,  ^"id  died  in  1876.  He  was  one  of  Napoleon's  soldiers. 
After  40  years'  absence  from  France  dating  from  1825  he  went  back  to 
Paris.  He  had  been  French  Consul  ai  Cork,  and  brought  up  nine 
children  whom  he  taught  entirely  himself.  In  1853  he  published  with 
Chapman  and  Hall  his  Language  as  a  Means  of  Mental  Ctilture  (2 
vols. ).  This  book  was  not  very  well  named,  for  it  contains  in  fact  an 
analysis  of  the  subject — education.  To  the  study  of  this  subject  Marcel 
must  have  given  his  life,  and  it  seems  odd  that  his  contribution  to 
English  (not  French)  pedagogic  literature  is  so  little  known.  A  French 
abridgment  of  his  work  appeared  in  1855  with  the  title  Premiers 
Prhicipes  (T  Education  ;  and  in  1867  he  published  in  French  V Etudes 
des  Languages  (Paris,  Borrani)  of  which  a  translation  was  published  in 
the  U.S.A.  Marcel's  notion  of  education  is  threefold,  viz..  Physical, 
Intellectual,  and  Moral  Education  :  the  1st  aiming  at  health,  strength, 
and  beauty  ;  the  2nd  at  mental  power  and  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  ; 
the  3rd  2X  piety ,  justice,  goodness,  and  wisdom.  According  to  him  the 
Creator  has  made  the  exercise  of  our  faculties  pleasurable.  This  will 
suggest  his  main  lines.  He  expects  to  find  general  assent,  for  he  quotes 
from  Garrick :  — 

"  When  Doctrine  meets  with  general  approbation, 

"  It  is  not  heresy  but  reformation." 

But  he  has  met  with  less  approbation  than  neglect.  His  "  axiomatic 
truths  "  that  I  quoted  in  the  old  appendix  were  abused  without  mercy 
by  a  critic  of  those  days  who  accused  me  of  "  bookmaking  "  for  putting 
them  in.  On  the  other  hand  my  last  American  reprinter  singles  them 
out  for  honour  and  puts  them  at  the  beginning  of  the  book.  After  this 
I  suppose  somebody  likes  them,  so  here  they  are : 

"Axiomatic  Truths  of  Methodology. — i.  The  method  of  nature 
is  the  archetype  of  all  methods,  and  especially  of  the  method  of  learning 
languages. 

2.  The  classification  of  the  objects  of  study  should  mark  out  to 
teacher  and  learner  their  respective  spheres  of  action. 

3.  The  ultimate  objects  of  the  study  should  always  be  kept  in  view, 
that  the  end  be  not  forgotten  in  pursuit  of  the  means. 

4.  The  means  ought  to  be  consistent  with  the  end. 

5.  Example  and  practice  are  more  efficient  than  precept  and  theory. 

6.  Only  one  thing  should  be  taught  at  one  time  ;  and  an  accumulation 
of  difficulties  should  be  avoided,  especially  in  the  beginning  of  the 
study. 

7.  Instruction  should  proceed  from  the  known  to  the  unknown,  from 


APPENDIX.  537 

the   simple  to  the  complex,  from  concrete  to  abstract  notions,  from 
analysis  to  synthesis. 

8.  The  mind  should  be  impressed  ■with  the  idea  before  it  takes 
cognisance  of  the  sign  that  represents  it. 

9.  The  development  of  the  intellectual  powers  is  more  important 
*han  the  acquisition  of  knowledge ;  each  should  be  made  auxiliary  to 
Ihe  other. 

10.  All  the  faculties  should  be  equally  exercised,  and  exercised  in  a 
way  consistent  with  the  exigencies  of  active  life. 

1 1.  The  protracted  exercise  of  the  faculties  is  injurious :  a  change  of 
occupation  renews  the  energy  of  their  action, 

12.  No  exercise  should  be  so  difficult  as  to  discourage  exertion,  nor 
so  easy  as  to  render  it  unnecessary  :  attention  is  secured  by  making 
study  iuteresting. 

13.  First  impressions  and  early  habits  are  the  most  important,  because 
they  are  the  most  enduring. 

14.  What  the  learner  discovers  by  mental  exertion  is  better  known 
than  what  is  told  him. 

15.  Learners  should  not  do  with  their  instructor  what  they  can  do  by 
themselves,  that  they  may  have  time  to  do  with  him  what  they  cannot 
do  by  themselves. 

16.  The  monitorial  principle  multiplies  the  benefits  of  public  in- 
struction.    By  teaching  we  learn. 

17.  The  more  concentrated  is  the  professor's  teaching,  the  more 
comprehensive  and  efficient  his  instruction. 

18.  In  a  class  the  time  must  be  so  employed  that  no  learner  shall 
be  idle,  and  the  business  so  contrived,  that  learners  of  different  degrees 
of  advancement  shall  derive  equal  advantage  from  the  instructor. 

19.  Repetition  must  mature  into  a  habit  what  the  learner  wishes  to 
remember. 

20.  Young  persons  should  be  taught  only  what  they  are  capable  of 
clearly  understanding,  and  what  may  be  useful  to  them  in  after-life." 

A.  What  do  jiJM  think  of  these?  E.  I  confess  they  bring  into  my 
mind  the  advice  given  to  a  learner  in  billiards:  "When  in  doubt 
cannon  and  pocket  the  red."  First  catch  your  "  Method  of  Nature," 
as  Mrs.  Glass  might  have  said.  As  to  No.  10  again,  who. shall  say 
what  "all  the  faculties"  are?  And  is  smelling  a  faculty  that  must  be 
equally  exercised  with  seeing  ?  When  the  young  Marcels  went  to 
Paris  I  fancy  they  found  there  far  more  that  was  worth  seeing 
than  worth  smelling.      A.     After   what  you  have  said  about  pupil- 


53^  APPENDIX. 

teachers  I  infer  you  do  not  advocate  the  "  monitorial  principle  "7 
E.  Not  exactly.  "  By  teaching  we  learn,"  This  is  very  true.  But 
if  we  can't  teach  we  can't  learn  by  teaching.  A.  But  may  we  not 
gain  by  trying  to  teach  ?  And  short  of  teaching  a  good  deal  may  be 
done  by  monitors.  R  If  by  the  monitorial  principle  we  mean  "En- 
courage the  young  to  make  themselves  useful  "  it  is  a  capital  principle. 

Words  and  Things. — A.  In  your  Sturm  Essay  you  say  :  "  The 
schoolmaster's  art  always  has  taken,  and  I  suppose,  in  the  main,  always 
will  take  for  its  material  the  means  of  expression."  Surely  the  signs  ol 
the  times  do  not  indicate  this.  Have  not  the  tongue  and,  the  pen  had 
their  day,  and  is  not  the  schoolmaster  turning  his  attention  from  them, 
not  perhaps  to  the  brain,  but  certainly  to  the  eye  and  the  hand  ?  It  has 
at  length  occurred  to  him  to  ask  like  Shy  lock  "  Hath  not  a  boy  eyes? 
Hath  not  a  boy  hands?"  And  as  it  seems  certain  that  the  boy  has 
these  organs,  the  schoolmaster  wants  to  find  employment  for  them. 
Till  now  no  scholastic  use  has  been  found  for  the  eye  except  reading,  or 
for  the  hand  except  making  strokes  with  the  pen  and  receiving  them 
from  the  cane.  But  it  will  be  different  in  the  future.  Words  have  had 
their  day.  Things  will  have  theirs.  E.  You  may  be  right ;  but  be 
careful  in  your  use  of  terms.  As  is  usually  the  case  with  *'  cries,"  if  we 
want  a  meaning  we  may  take  ou*-  choice.  The  contrast  between 
"words  "and  "things  "is  sometimes  between  studies  like  grammar, 
logic,  and  rhetoric  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other,  Realien,  studies 
which  in  some  way  have  Things  for  their  subject.  Then  again  we  have 
words  as  the  vocal  or  vis  ible  symbols  of  ideas  contrasted  with  the  ideas 
themselves.  Those  who  r.om plain  of  the  time  spent  on  words  are  thinking, 
some  of  them,  of  the  time  spent  on  the  art  of  expression,  others  of  the 
time  given  to  symbols  which  do  not,  to  the  learner,  symbolize  anything. 
.  But  in  our  day  Words  and  Things  are  supposed  to  represent  the  study 
of  literature  and  the  study  of  natural  science.  At  present  there  is  a  rage 
for  Things,  but  it  is  a  little  early  to  adjudicate  on  the  comparative  claims 
of,  say  Homer  and  James  Watt,  on  the  gratitude  of  mankind.  The 
great  book  of  our  day  on  Education,  Herbert  Spencer's,  would  make 
short  work  with  "words";  and  yet  two  School  Commissions,  the 
Piblic  Schools  Commission  of  1862,  and  the  Middle  Schools  Commission 
of  1867  have  defended  "words."  The  first  of  these  says  :  "  Grammar 
is  the  logic  of  common  speech,  and  there  are  few  educated  men  who  are  not 
sensible  of  the  advantages  they  gained,  as  boys,  from  the  steady  practice  of 
composition  and  translation,  and  from  their  introduction  to  etymology. 
The  study  of  literature  is  the  study,  not  indeed  of  the  physical,  but  of  the 


APPENDIX.  539 

Intellectual  and  moral  world  we  live  in,  and  of  the  thougnts,  lives,  and 
characters  of  those  men  whose  writings  or  whose  memories  succeeding 
generations  have  thought  it  worth  while  to  preserve."  The  Commis- 
sioners on  Middle  Schools  express  a  similar  opinion  : — "  The  '  human ' 
subjects  of  instruction,  of  which  the  study  of  language  is  the  beginning, 
appear  to  have  a  distinctly  greater  educational  power  than  the  'material.' 
A3  all  civilisation  really  takes  its  rise  in  human  intercourse,  so  the  most 
efficient  instrument  of  education  appears  to  be  the  study  which  most  bears 
on  that  intercourse,  the  study  of  human  speech.  Nothing  appears  to 
develop  and  discipline  the  whole  man  so  much  as  the  study  which 
assists  the  learner  to  understand  the  thoughts,  to  enter  into  the  feelings, 
to  appreciate  the  moral  judgments  of  others.  There  is  nothing  so 
opposed  to  true  cultivation,  nothing  so  unreasonable,  as  excessive 
narrowness  of  mind  ;  and  nothing  contributes  to  remove  this  narrowness 
so  much  as  that  clear  understanding  of  language  which  lays  open 
th*;  thoughts  of  others  to  ready  appreciation.  Nor  is  equal  clearness 
of  thought  to  be  obtained  in  any  other  way.  Clearness  of  thought 
is  bound  up  with  clearness  of  language,  and  the  one  is  impossible 
without  the  other.  When  the  study  of  language  can  be  followed  by  that 
of  literature,  not  only  breadth  and  clearness,  but  refinement  becomes 
attainable.  The  study  of  history  in  the  full  sense  belongs  to  a  still  later 
age  :  for  till  the  learner  is  old  enough  to  have  some  appreciation  ol 
politics,  he  is  not  capable  of  grasping  the  meaning  of  what  he  studies. 
But  both  literature  and  history  do  but  carry  on  that  which  the  study  of 
language  has  begim,  the  cultivation  of  all  those  faculties  by  which  man 
has  contact  with  man."  (Middle  Schools  Report,  voL  i,  c.  iv,  p.  22.) 
As  Matthew  Arnold  says,  in  comparing  two  things  it  is  "a  kind  of 
disadvantage  "  to  be  totally  ignorant  about  one  of  them  ;  and  I  labour 
under  this  disadvantage  in  comparing  literature  and  science.  But  I 
own  I  do  not  expect  the  ultimate  victory  will  be  with  those  who 
may  kill,  or  even  cure  or  carry,  the  body,  and  after  that  have  no  more 
that  they  can  do.  Milton  says  of  fine  music,  that  it  "  brings  all 
heaven  before  our  eyes."  Similarly  fine  literature  can  at  least  bring  all 
earth  and  its  inhabitants,  and  the  best  thoughts  and  actions  the  world 
has  known.  I  remember  Matthew  Arnold  in  conversation  dwelling  on 
the  difll:rence  it  makes  to  us  what  we  read.  Surely  one  of  the  great 
things  education  should  do  is  to  enable  and  to  accustom  the  thoughts  of  the 
young  to  follow  the  guidance  which  is  offered  us  in  "the  words  of  the 
wise. " 
Seneca  v.  Cotnenius. — A.     I  like  your  quotation  on  p.  169  from 


540  APPENDIX. 

Dr.  John  Brown.  After  your  see-saw  fashion,  you  have,  in  a  note  on 
P-  365,  expressed  a  fondness  for  "a  notion  of  the  whole."  E.  I  am 
there  thinking  of  minute  instruction  about  parts.  But  in  most  things 
notions  of  the  parts  precede  the  notion  of  the  whole  ;  and  in  this 
matter  I  think  Seneca  was  wiser  than  Comenius  :  "  More  easily  are 
we  led  through  the  parts  into  a  conception  of  the  whole.  Facilius  per 
partes  in  cognitionem  totius  adducimur."  (Ep.  88,  I.)  A.  May  I 
ask  to  whom  you  are  indebted  for  this  erudition?  E.  To  Wueste- 
mann.     {Promptuarium.     Gotha,  1856.) 

Useful  Knowledge. — A.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  now  and  then 
you  do  not  attach  sufficient  importance  to  the  possession  of  knowledge 
and  skill.  E.  Perhaps  I  do  not.  What  I  wish  to  cultivate  is,  not 
so  much  knowledge  as  the  desire  for  knowledge,  and  further,  the  activity 
of  mind  that  will  turn  knowledge  to  account.  Knowledge  driven  in 
from  without,  so  to  speak,  and  skill  obtained  by  enforced  practice  are, 
I  will  not  say  valueless,  but  very  different  in  quality  from  the  knowledge 
and  skill  that  their  possessor  has  sought  for.  Knowledge  is  a  tool.  He 
who  has  acquired  it  without  caring  for  it,  will  have  neither  the  skill  nor 
the  will  to  use  it.  A.  Does  not  this  apply  to  the  knowledges  recom- 
mended by  Herbert  Spencer,  knowledge  how  to  bring  up  children,  &c., 
and  to  the  knowledge  of  physiological  facts  and  rules  of  health  which 
you  yourself  say  would  be  "of  great  practical  value"  (p.  444)?  E. 
Certainly  it  does,  and  also  to  the  "  domestic  economy "  of  our  Board 
schools ;  still  more  to  the  lessons  in  morality  which  it  seems  are,  at 
least  in  France  if  not  elsewhere,  to  supersede  religion.  If  you  can  get 
the  learners  to  care  for  such  lessons,  the  lessons  are  worth  giving ;  if 
not,  not.  Care,  not  for  the  thing,  but  for  the  examination  in  the  thing, 
is  different,  and  can  produce  only  a  very  inferior  article.  I  expect  there 
are  instances  in  which  care  for  the  examination  develops  into  care  for 
the  subject  of  the  examination ;  but  these  cases  are  so  rare  that  they 
may  be  neglected.  A.  I  see  you  would  not  take  a  deep  interest  in 
the  "  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Useful  Knowledge."  And  yet  how 
terrible  are  the  results  of  ignorance !  Herbert  Spencer  is  great  on 
knowledge  for  earning  a  livelihood.  It  would  add,  perhaps,  three  or 
four  shillings  a  week  to  the  wages  of  the  working  man  if  his  wife  had 
learnt  to  cook.  In  matters  of  food  the  waste  from  ignorance  among  the 
English  poor  is  appalling.  E.  In  this  case  the  school  might  do  much, 
as  girls  would  be  anxious  to  learn.  And  though  we  cannot  lay  down 
as  a  general  rule  that  it  is  "  never  too  late  to  learn,"  this  rule  might 
be  applied  to  cooking.     I  see  that  in  Govan,  a  suburb  of  Glasgow,  tlie 


APPENDIX.  541 

widow  of  the  gi  eat  ship-builder,  Joiin  Elder,  employs  a  trained  teacher 
of  cookery  to  instruct  both  by  demonstrations,  and  also  by  visiting 
houses  to  which  he  (or  she?)  is  invited.  The  results  are  said  to  be 
excellent.     May  this  good  lady  find  many  imitators  I 

Memorizing  Poetry. — A.  About  learning  poetry  by  heart,  did 
you  tver  hear  of  the  old  Winchester  plan  of  "  Standing  up"?  In  the 
regular  "exams."  ("trials  "  as  we  called  them  at  Harrow),  each  boy 
had  to  state  in  "how  much  Homer  and  Virgil  he  was  ready  to  "stand 
up."  The  master  examined  into  the  boy's  power  of  saying  this  by 
heart,  and  of  construing  all  he  said.  From  the  very  first  the  boy 
always  gave  in  the  same  poetry,  only  adding  to  it  each  time.  E.  I 
have  heard  of  it.  Why,  I  wonder,  was  this  plan  given  up?  A.  I 
have  asked  old  Wykamists,  but  nobody  seems  to  know.  Perhaps  the 
quantities  learnt  became  absurdly  large.  But  this  method  of  accretion, 
if  not  overdone,  would  leave  something  behind  it  for  life.  Let  me 
show  you  a  passage  from  ^schines  (Agnst  Ktesip.  §  135)  which  I  have 
seen,  not  in  ^schines,  but  in  J.  H.  Krause's  "  Education  among  the 
Greeks"  {Gesch.  d.  Erziehg  bet  d.  Griechen).  It  is  so  simple  that 
even  you  may  construe  it.  Aea  tovto  yap  oifxai  fjiias  TralBas  ovras  rag 
T&p  irocrjTcov  yvoifias  fKfiavOdveip  iv'  afSpes  ovres  airais  xpa>(i(6a. 
E.  There  is  very  little  left  of  my  Littlego  Greek,  but  I  will  try  :  "  For 
it  is,  I  suppose,  with  this  object  that,  when  we  are  boys,  we  thoroughly 
commit  to  memory  the  sayings  of  the  poets  —in  order  to  turn  them  to 
account  when  we  are  men."  I  wish  the  old  Greek  custom  were  con- 
tinued. I  believe  in  learning  by  heart  what  is  worthy  of  it  (see  sufra, 
p.  74,  «. ).  A.  But  the  poetry  that  appeals  to  children  they  grow  out 
of.  E.  This  cannot  be  said  of  the  best  of  it ;  but  of  this  best  there 
is.  to  be  sure,  a  very  small  quantity.  By  "appeals  to,"  I  suppose  you 
mean  "written  on  purpose  for."  But  in  a  sense  much  melodious 
poetry  appeals  to  children  even  when  they  can  get  only  a  vague  notion 
that  it  has  a  meaning.  I  have  known  children  delight  in  "The 
splcndnur  falls  on  castle  walls,"  and  Hohen  Linden  pleases  them  much 
better  ihan  anything  of  Jane  Taylor's.  But  here,  at  all  events,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  about  the  wdsdom  of  Tranio's  rule  :  "  Study  what  you 
most  afiect."  As  I  have  said  in  an  old  paper  of  mine  (How  to  Train 
the  Memo>y ;  Kellogg's  Teacher's  Manuals,  No.  9),  the  teacher  may 
read  aloud  some  selected  pieces,  and  let  the  children  separately  "give 
maiks"  for  each.     He  can  then  choose  "  what  they  most  affect." 

Books  for  Teachers. — A.  Don't  you  think  you  might  give  some 
useful  advice  to  young  teachers  about  the  books  they  should  read?  Bi 
37 


542  APPENDIX. 

I  had  intended  giving  some  advice,  but  in  reading  tastes  differ  widtly, 
and  after  all  the  best  advice  is  Tranio's,  "  Study  what  you  most  affect." 
There  are  three  Englishmen  who  have  written  so  well  that,  as  it  seems, 
they  will  be  read  by  English-speaking  teachers  of  all  time.  These  are 
Ascham,  Locke,  and  Herbert  Spencer.  If  a  teacher  does  not  know 
these  he  is  not  likely  to  know  or  care  anything  about  the  literature  of 
education.  These  authors  have  attained  to  the  position  of  classics  by 
writing  short  books  in  excellent  English.  After  these,  I  must  know 
something  of  the  student  before  I  ventured  on  a  recommendation.  If 
he  (oi  more  probably  she)  be  a  student  indeed,  nothing  will  be  found 
more  valuable  than  Henry  Barnard's  vols,  especially  those  of  the 
English  Pedagogy.  But  the  majority  of  mankind  want  books  that  are 
readable,  i.e.,  can  be  read  easily.  I  do  not  know  any  books  on 
teaching  that  I  have  found  easier  reading  than  D'Arcy  Thompson's 
Day-Dreams  of  a  Schoolmaster  and  H.  Clay  Trumbull's  Teaching  and 
Teachers  (Eng.  edition  is  Hodder  and  Stoughton's).  But  some  very_ 
valuable  books  are  by  no  means  easy  reading.  Take  e.g.  Froebel's 
Education  of  Man  (trans,  by  Hailmann,  Appletons).  This  book  is  a 
fount  of  ideas,  but  Froebel  seems  to  want  interpreters,  and  happily  he 
has  found  them.  The  Baroness  Marenholtz- Billow  has  done  good  work 
for  him  in  German,  and  in  English  he  has  had  good  interpreters  as 
e.g.,  Miss  Shirreff,  Mr.  H.  C.  Bowen,  and  Supt.  Hailmann.  In  the 
case  of  Froebel  there  is  certainly  a  want  of  literary  talent ;  but  even 
where  this  talent  is  clearly  shown,  a  book  may  be  by  no  means  "easy 
reading."  It  may  make  great  demands  on  our  thinking  power,  and 
thought  is  never  easy.  This  will  probably  prevent  Thring's  Theory 
and  Practice  of  Teachi7ig  (Pitt  Press,  45.  bd.)  from  ever  being  a 
popular  book,  though  every  teacher  who  has  read  it  will  feel  that  he  is 
the  better  for  it.  Sometimes  the  size  of  a  book  stands  in  the  way  of  its 
popularity.  This  seems  to  me  the  case  with  Joseph  Payne's  Science 
and  AH  of  Tecuhing  (Longmans,  lar.) ;  but  this  book  is  popular  in 
the  United  States,  and  I  take  this  as  a  proof  that  the  American  teachers 
are  more  in  earnest  than  we  are.  All  the  'essentials  of  popularity  sjr 
combinsd  in  Fitch's  Lectures  on  Teaching  (Fitt  Press,  ^s.),  and  this  is 
now  (and  long  may  it  continue  !)  one  of  our  most  read  educational  works. 
A.  But  what  about  less  known  books?  Cannot  you  recomm/nd 
anything  as  yet  unknown  to  fame  ?  E.  Ah  !  you  want  me  to  tell  you 
wtat  books  deserve  fame,  that  is,  to — 

"  Look  into  the  seeds  of  time 
'•  4ad  »ay  which  grain  will  grow,  and  which  will  nou" 


APPENDIX.  543 

But  I  have  "no  intention  uf  posing  as  the  representative  of  the  readers  ol 
our  day,  still  less  of  the  future.  Indeed,  far  from  being  able  to  tell  you 
what  other  people  would  like  or  should  like,  I  can  hardly  say  what  I 
like  myself.  Perhaps  I  come  across  a  book  and  read  it  with  delight. 
Remembering  the  very  favourable  impression  made  by  the  first  reading 
I  go  back  to  the  book  some  years  afterwards  and  I  then  in  some  cases 
cannot  discover  what  it  was  that  pleased  me.  A.  That  reminds  me  of 
Wordsworth's  similar  experience — 

"  I  sometimes  could  be  sad 
To  think  of,  to  read  over,  many  a  page, 
Poems  withal  of  name,  which  at  that  time 
Did  never  fail  to  entrance  me,  and  are  now 
Dead  in  my  eyes,  dead  as  a  theatre 
Fresh  emptied  of  spectators."  {Prelude  v.) 
I  suppose  this  has  happened  to  all  of  us.  We  go  back  and  the  things 
are  the  same  and  yet  look  so  different.  It  is  like  after  the  night  of  an 
illumination  looking  at  the  designs  by  daylight.  E.  Not  many  of  our 
designs  will  bear  "  the  light  of  common  day."  And  if  we  tried  to  settle 
which,  we  should  probably  be  quite  wrong.  Of  my  three  English 
Educational  Classics  one  can  hardly  understand  why  the  peoples  who 
speak  English  have  retained  Ascham  while  Mulcaster,  Brinsley,  and 
Hoole  are  forgotten.  Locke  had  his  reputation  as  a  philosopher  to 
keep  his  Thoughts  from  neglect,  and  yet  at  the  beginning  of  1880 1  found 
that  there  was  no  English  edition  in  print.  Perhaps  some  of  the  old 
writers  will  come  into  the  field  of  view  again.  E.g.,  my  friend  Dr. 
Biilbring,  of  Heidelberg,  the  editor  of  De  Foe's  Compleat  Gentleman, 
talks  of  reviving  the  fame  of  Mary  Astell,  who  at  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century  took  up  the  rights  of  women  and  put  very 
vigorously  some  of  the  pet  ideas  of  the  nineteenth  century.  A.  I  will 
not  ask  you  to  "  look  into  the  seeds  of  time,"  and  I  will  not  take  you 
for  a  representative  person  in  any  way.  On  these  conditions  perhaps 
you  will  give  me  the  names  of  some  of  the  books  that  have  made  such 
\i  favourable  impression  on  first  reading — at  least  in  cases  where  that 
impression  has  not  been  effaced  by  further  acquaintance.  E.  Agreed. 
I  ought  to  begin  with  psychology,  but  I  must  with  sorrow  confess  that 
I  never  read  a  whole  book  on  the  science  of  mind  ;  so  this  most 
important  section  of  the  subject  must  be  omitted.  French  and  German 
books  I  will  also  omit  unless  they  exist  in  an  English  translation. 
About  the  historical  and  biographical  part  of  the  subject  I  have  already 
named  many  books  such  as  S.  S.  Laurie's  Comenius  and  Russell's 
Guimps's    Pestalozzi.      F.    V.    N.  •  Painter's   History  of  Education   Ls 


544  APPENDIX. 

pleasantly  written  ;  but  no  really  satisfactory  history  of  education  can  bt 
held  in  one  small  volume.  This  objection  in  limine  also  applies  to  G. 
Compayre's  History  of  Pedagogy  (trans,  by  W,  H,  Payne)  which  is  far 
too  full  of  matter.  In  it  we  find  many  things,  but  only  a  very  advanced 
student  can  find  muck.  Little  has  been  written  about  English-speaking 
educators,  but  there  are  good  accounts  of  Bell,  Lancaster,  Wilderspin, 
and  Stow  in  J.  Leitch's  Practical  Educationists  (Macmillans,  6s.). 
Turning  to  books  about  principles  and  methods  I  have  found  nothing 
that  with  reference  to  the  first  stage  of  instruction  seems  to  me  better 
than  Colonel  F.  W.  Parker's  Talks  on  Teaching  (New  York,  Kelloggs). 
Fitch's  more  complete  book  I  have  named  already.  A.  Geikie's 
Teaching  of  Geography  (Macmillans,  2s.  6d. )  is  a  book  I  read  with 
great  delight.  For  principles  Joseph  Payne  seems  to  me  one  of  our 
best  education^  writers,  and  we  shall  before  long  have,  I  hope,  the 
much  expected  volume  of  his  papers  on  the  history  of  education.  Some 
of  the  smaller  books  that  I  remember  reading  with  especial  gratification 
are  Jacob  Abbott's  Teacher,  Calderwood  On  Teaching,  A.  Sidgwick't 
lectures  on  Stimulus  (Pitt  Press)  and  on  Discipline  (Rivingtons),  and 
Mrs.  Malleson's  Notes  on  Early  Training  (Sonnenschein).  There 
seemed  to  me  a  very  fine  tone  in  a  book  much  read  in  the  United 
States — D.  P.  Page's  Theory  and  Practice  of  Teaching.  T.  Tate's 
Philosophy  of  Education  I  liked  very  much,  and  the  book  has  been 
revived  by  Colonel  Parker  (Kelloggs).  There  are  some  books  that  are 
worth  getting  "by  opportunity,"  as  the  Germans  say,  good  books  now 
out  of  print.  Among  them  I  should  name  Rollin's  Method  in  three 
volumes,  Rousseau's  Emilius  in  four,  De  Morgan's  Arithmetic,  Essays 
on  a  Liberal  Education  edited  by  Farrar.  I  know  or  have  known  all 
the  books  here  named,  but  my  knowledge  and  time  for  reading  do  not 
extend  as  far  as  my  bookshelves,  and  I  see  before  me  some  books  that 
I  have  not  mentioned  and  yet  feel  sure  I  ought  to  mention.  Among 
them  are  Compayre's  Lectures  on  Pedagogy,  translated  by  W.  H.  Payne, 
vhich  seems  an  admirable  compilation  (Boston,  Heath ;  London, 
Ijonnenschein) ;  Shaw  and  Donnell's  School  Devices  (Kelloggs)  in 
which  I  have  seen  some  good  "wrinkles";  and  T.  J.  Morgan's 
Educational  Mosaics  (Boston;  Silver,  Rogers  &  Co.).  J.  Landon'a 
School  Management  (London,  K.  Paul)  I  have  heard  spoken  of  as  an 
excellent  book,  and  I  like  what  I  have  seen  of  it.  But  I  set  out  with  a 
promise  to  mention  not  all  our  good  books,  but  those  which  I  thought 
good  after  reading  them.  There  still  remain  some  that  fall  under  this 
category  and  have  not  been  mentioned,  e.g..  The  Action  of  Examinations, 


APPENDIX.  545 

by  H.  Latham,  Cotterill's  Reforms  in  Public  Si  kools,  W.  H.  Payne's 
Contributions,  and  a  pamphlet  from  which  I  formed  a  very  high 
estimate  of  the  writer's  ability  to  give  us  some  first-rate  books  about 
teaching      I  mean  A  Pot  of  Green  Feathers,  by  T.  G.  Rooper. 

Professional  Knowledge. — A.  What  a. pity  it  is  that  in  English 
we  have  no  name  for  KernsprUche  !  When  an  important  truth  has  been 
aptly  expressed,  the  very  expression  may  be  an  important  event  in  the 
history  of  thought.  Take  e.g.  Milton's  words  which  I  observe  you 
have  quoted  more  than  once,  about  "  the  understanding  founding  itself 
on  sensible  things"  (p.  510).  Here  we  have  a  "kernel-saying"  that 
might  have  sprung  up  and  }rielded  a  rich  crop  of  improvements  in 
teaching  if  it  had  only  taken  root  in  teachers'  minds.  Why  don't  you 
make  a  collection  of  such  "  kernel-sayings  "  ?  E.  I  have  had  thoughts 
of  doing  so,  and  I  have  a  collection  of  collections  of  Kemspriiche  in 
German.  A.  Well,  German  is  not  the  language  I  should  choose  for 
the  expression  of  thought.  According  to  Heine,  in  everything  the 
Germans  do  there  is  a  thought  embodied ;  and  we  may  add  that  in 
everything  they  say  a  thought  is  embedded  ;  but  I  rather  shrink  from 
the  labour  of  digging  it  out.  E.  You  would  find  a  collection  of 
•'  kernel-sayings  "  in  any  language  rather  stiff  reading.  And  after  all, 
the  sayings  which  strike  us  are  just  those  which  give  utterance  to  our 
own  thought.  This  is  probably  the  reason  why  in  reading  such  a  book 
so  few  sayings  seem  to  us  worthy  of  selection.  I  had  intended  prefacing 
these  essays  with  some  mottoes,  as  Dr.  W.  B.  Hodgson  used  to  do 
when  he  wrote,  but  finally  I  have  left  my  readers  to  collect  for  them- 
selves. A.  I  should  like  to  know  the  sort  of  thing  you  intended  for 
your  "  first  course."  E.  Here  is  one  of  them  from  Professor  Stanley 
Hall,  of  Worcester,  Mass.  :  "  Modem  life  in  all  its  departments  is 
ruled  by  experts  and  by  those  who  have  attained  the  mastery  that 
comes  by  concentration."  (New  England  yi  of  Ed.,  27th  February', 
1890.)  A,  According  to  you,  sayings  strike  us  only  when  they  express 
our  own  thought.  In  that  case  Professor  Hall's  saying  would  not  make 
much  impression  on  the  generality  of  your  scholastic  friends.  Many  of 
the  best  paid  schoolmasters  in  England  would  burst  out  laughing  if 
anyone  spoke  of  them  as  "  educational  experts."  Educational  experts? 
Why  they  have  never  even  thought  of  the  art  of  teaching,  leave  alone 
the  science  of  education.  They  are  "good  scholars"  who  at  one  time 
thought  enough  of  preparing  for  the  Tripos  or  the  Honour  Schools ; 
and  having  got  a  good  degree  they  thought  (and  small  blame  to  them  !) 
bow  to  employ  their  knowledge  of  classics  so  as  to  secure  a  comfortable 


546  APPENDIX. 

income  for  life.  Accordingly  they  took  a  mastership,  and  soon  settled 
down  into  the  groove  of  work.  But  as  for  the  science  of  education  they 
have  thought  of  it  about  as  much  as  they  have  thought  of  the  sea-serpent, 
and  would  probably  tell  you  with  Mr.  Lowe  (now  forgotten  as  Lord 
Sherbrooke)  that  "  there  is  no  such  thing."  E.  No  doubt  they  feel  the 
force  of  Dr.  Harris's  words  :  "  For  the  most  part  the  teacher  who  ia 
theoretically  inclined  is  lame  in  the  region  of  details  of  work."  It 
would  be  a  pity  indeed  if  their  "  resolution  "  to  make  a  good  income 
were  "sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought."  A.  They  had  to 
think  how  to  prepare  for  the  Tripos  ;  and  before  long  they  will  have  to 
think  how  to  do  their  work  of  teaching  and  educating  better  than  they 
have  done  it  hitherto.  The  future  will  demand  something  more  than 
"  a  good  degree."  Professor  Hall  is  right.  The  day  of  the  experts  is 
coming.  But  does  not  even  Dr.  Harris  warn  teachers  against  being 
"  too  theoretical  "  ?  E.  It  is  rather  jumping  at  conclusions  to  assume 
with  some  of  our  countrymen  that  if  a  man  does  not  think,  he 
does  act.  Goethe's  aphorism  which  Dr.  Harris  quotes  is  this : 
"Thought  expands,  but  lames  ;  action  narrows,  but  intensifies."  Now 
a  good  many  men  who  do  not  expend  energy  in  thought  are 
by  no  means  strong  in  action.  In  education  they  have  no  desire 
either  to  think  the  best  that  is  thought  or  to  do  the  best  that  is  done. 
They  won't  inquire  about  either ;  and  they  show  the  most  impartial 
ignorance  of  both.  Like  Dr.  Ridding  they  are  of  opinion  that 
professional  knowledge  is  to  be  sought  only  by  persons  without  the 
advantages  of  having  been  at  a  public  school  and  of  "a  good  degree." 
As  for  reading  books  about  teaching  they  leave  that  sort  of  thing  to 
national  schoolmasters.  And  yet  if  teaching  is  an  art,  they  might  get 
at  least  as  much  good  from  books  as  the  golf-player  gets  or  the  whist- 
player.  "  How  marvellous  it  is  when  one  comes  to  consider  the 
matter,  that  a  man  should  decline  to  receive  instruction  on  a  technical 
subject  from  those  who  have  eminently  distinguished  themselves  in  it 
and  have  sjrstematised  for  the  benefit  of  others  the  results  of  the 
experience  of  a  lifetime ! "  Mr.  James  Payn  who  wrote  this  {So7ne 
Private  Views,  p.  176)  was  thinking  of  books  not  on  teaching  but  on 
whist ;  but  his  words  would  come  home  to  teachers  if  they  took  as 
much  interest  in  teaching  as  he  takes  in  whist  A.  I  fancy  you  have 
spotted  the  real  deficiency  ;  it  is  want  of  interest.  It  is  only  when  a 
man  becomes  thoroughly  interested  in  whist  that  he  desires  to  play 
better,  and  when  he  becomes  thoroughly  interested  in  teaching  that  he 
desires  to  teach  better.      And  if  only  he  desires  to  improve  he  will 


APPENDIX,  547 

seek  all  the  professional  knowledge  wilhin  his  reach.  "  Every  one," 
(ays  Matthew  Arnold,  "  every  one  is  aware  how  those  who  want  to 
cultivate  any  sense  or  endowment  in  themselves  must  be  habitually 
conversant  with  the  works  of  people  who  have  been  eminent  for  that 
sense,  must  study  them,  catch  inspiration  from  them.  Only  in  this 
way  can  progress  be  made."  (Quoted  by  Momerie).  Let  us  hope  that 
you  have  incited  some  young  teachers  to  study  and  catch  inspiration 
from  the  great  thinkers  and  workers  in  the  educational  field.  E.  This 
is  the  object  I  have  aimed  at.  If  I  wanted  a  motto  I  think  I  should 
choose  this  from  Froebel  interpreted  by  Miss  Shirreff : 

"  The  duty  of  each  generation  is  to  gather  up  its  inheritance  from 
the  past,  and  thus  to  serve  the  present,  and  prepare  better  things  foi  the 
fiiJure." 


SYLLABUS 
OF  QUICK'S  EDUCATIONAL  REFORMERS. 

From  the  International  Reading  Circle  Course  of 
Professional  Study. 


Pages  I  to  62. 

I.    THE    RENASCENCE. 

1.  The  essential  element  in  literature. 

2.  Classical  literature  in  education. 

3.  The  educational  classes  produced  by  renascence  tend- 

encies. 

4.  How  much  of  the  error  of  the  "  renascence  ideal "  still 

survives .'' 

5.  Is  this  harm  overbalanced  by  the  good  influences  of  that 

ideal  ? 

II.    STURM. 
{See  Painter,  pp.  160-162,  for  Stttrtn's  Course  of  Study.) 

1.  What  two  or  more  influences  of  Sturm's  school  would 

you  mention    as   most   prominently    retained    in    our 
larger  schools  of  to-day  ? 

2.  How  far  are  these  influences  good,  and  in  what  ways  are 

they  evil } 

III.   THE  JESUITS. 

1.  Their  motive. 

2.  Their  elements  of  excellence. 

3.  What   value  attaches  to   their   provisions  for   securing 

thoroughness  } 

4.  What  to  their  instruction  in  morals  ? 

5.  What  to  their  physical  training  } 

Pages  63  to  171. 

RABELAIS. 

I.  His   products   of   education  :    wisdom,    eloquence,  and 
piety. 


550  SYLLABUS   OF 

2.  His  emphasis  upon  the  study  of  things. 

3.  His  standard  of  physical  training. 

MONTAIGNE. 

1.  His  prime  product  of  education  :  wisdom,  in  thought 

and  action ;  not  knowledge. 

2.  The  practical  errors  in  his  theory  of  educational  meth- 

ods. 

ASCHAM. 

I.  His  method  of  Latin  instruction. 

MULCASTER.       ' 

1.  His  principles  of  education  as  identical  with  the  best  of 

to-day. 

2.  His  recognition  of  the  need  for  trained  teachers. 


1.  His  practical  failure  due  to  the  characteristics  of  the 

man,  not  to  faults  in  his  principles  of  education. 

2.  Nine  cardinal  principles  of  didactics  as  gathered  from 

his  writings  upon  method. 


1.  The  first  to  treat  education  in  a  scientific  spirit. 

2.  Based  e'ducational  method  upon  an  understanding  of  the 

nature  of  the  child. 

3.  Insisted  upon  the  direct  study  of  external  Nature,  and 

upon  the   learning  of  words  only  in  connection  with 
things. 

4.  Recognized  education  as  the  development   of   all  the 

faculties  of  body  and  of  mind. 

5.  Demanded  the  equal  instruction  of  both  sexes. 

6.  Taught  that  languages  must  be  learned  through  prac- 

tice, not  by  means  of  rules. 

7.  Made  provision  for  education  through  the  hand  as  well 

as  through  the  eye  and  ear. 


QUICK'S   EDUCATIONAL   REFORMERS.  55 1 

Pages  172  to  2 1 8. 

THE   PORT-ROYALISTS. 

1.  Purpose  and  method  of  Saint  Cyran's  "Little  Schools." 

2.  Actual  results  of  English  public-school  influences  as  op- 

posed to  St.  Cyran's  theory. 

3.  Port- Royalists'  restoration  of  the  mother  tongue  as  the 

subject-matter  of  elementary  instruction. 

4.  Literature  study   as  distinguished  from  grammar  study 

of  Latin  and  Greek. 

5.  Logic,  or  the  act  of  thinking. 

6.  The  principles  set  forth  in  the  pedagogic  writings  of  the 

Port-Royalists. 

SOME   ENGLISH  WRITERS   BEFORE    LOCKE. 

1.  Francis    Bacon  :    first  great  leader    of  the  realists  —  of 

those  who  sought  to  know  the  facts  of  Nature  rather 
than  the  thoughts  of  man. 

2.  Charles  Hoole :  "  one  of  the  pioi;ieer  educators  of  his 

century." 

3.  Dury  and  Petty  :  extending  the  doctrines  of  realism. 

4.  Milton  :  elevating  the  moral  nature  to  the  first  place  in 

his  theory  of  a  complete  education. 

Pages  219  to  238. 

JOHN   LOCKE. 
(See  Painter's  History,  pp.  218-223.) 

1.  From  the  standpoints  of  reason  he  rejected  the  estab- 

lished methods. 

2.  His  definition  of  knowledge. 

3.  Development  of  body  and  mind,  and  formation  of  right 

habits  the  true  aim  of  education. 

4.  Locke's  comparison  of  the  child  to  white  paper  or  wax, 

5.  The  naturalistic  school  of  educational  thinkers. 

6.  Objections  to  classing  Locke  as  a  utilitarian. 


552  SYLLABUS   OF 

Pages  239  to  289. 

ROUSSEAU. 

1.  To  be  classed  with  the  thinkers,  not  with  the  doers,  in 

educational  work. 

2.  The  value  of  his  destructive  work. 

3.  His  three  kinds  of  education — from  Nature,  from  men, 

from  things. 

4.  The  first  essential  in  the  work  of  education  is  to  under- 

stand the  mind  of  childhood. 

5.  Some  characteristics  of  the  mode  of  acting  of  the  child's 

mind. 

6.  Evil   of   over-directing  in  both  discipline  and  instruc- 

tion. 

7.  Right  and  wrong  views  of  the  value  of  self-teaching. 


1.  His  mode  of  thought  and  manner  of  life. 

2.  The  theory  outlined  in  his  Elementary  and  in  his  Book 

of  Method. 

3.  Interesting  devices  used  at  the  Philanthropinum. 

4.  The  training  of  the  senses  and  acquirement  of  knowl- 

edge through   the  senses  pre-eminent   both  in  Rous- 
seau's and  in  Basedow's  theories. 

Pages  290  to  383. 

PESTALOZZI.      I.   HIS  LIFE. 

1.  His  personal  characteristics  as  shown  in  his  early  life 

and  in  his  farming  venture. 

2.  His  view  of  the  nature  and  purpose  of  education. 

3.  The  first  experiment  at  Neuhof  and  its  failure. 

4.  The  orphanage  at  Stanz. 

5.  The  experiences  at  Burgdorf. 

6.  The  Institute  at  Yverdun. 

7.  The  last  success  at  Clindy. 

8.  Death  of  Pestalozzi  at  Neuhof. 


QUICK'S   EDUCATIONAL   REFORMERS.  553 

II.   PESTALOZZl'S   PRINCIPLES. 

1.  The  main   object   of  the   school  not   to   teach   but  to 

develop. 

2.  The  child  first  to  be  trained  to  love ;  moral  education. 

3.  The  child  next  to  be  trained  to  think  j  intellectual  edu- 

cation, 

4.  The  child  also  to  be  trained  to  work  -  physical  educa- 

tion. 

5.  The  self-activity  of  the  pupil  the  real  force  in  all  true 

education. 

Pages  384  to  413. 

FRIEDRICH   FROEBEL, 

1.  The  best  tendencies  of  educational  thought  embodied 

in  Froebel's  teachings. 

2.  Froebel  imperfectly  understood  even  by  the  most  earnest 

students. 

3.  Influence   of  his  own  neglected    youth   upon  his  after 

consideration  for  children. 

4.  His  communion  with  Nature  in  the  Thuringian  Forest. 

5.  His  transfer  from  the  study  of  architecture  to  the  practice 

and  study  of  education. 

6.  His  association  with  Pestalozzi  at  Yverdun. 

7.  The  influence  of  his  military  experience  in  showing  him 

the  value  of  discipline  and  united  action. 

8.  His  experiences  in  teaching   prior  to  his  first   kinder- 

garten. 

9.  The  edict  forbidding  the  establishment  of  schools  based 

upon  Froebel's  principles. 

10.  His  death  at  threescore  years  and  ten. 

froebel's  educational  principles. 

11.  To  find  in  science  the  expression  of  the  mind  of  God. 

12.  To  view  education  as  founded  upon  religion,  and  lead- 

ing to  unity  with  God. 

13.  To  regard  the  educational  process  as  a  process  of  de- 

velopment. 


554  SYLLABUS   OF 

14.  To  seek  development,  or  evolution  of  power,  in  the  exer- 

cise of  those  functions,  in  the  use  of  those  faculties, 
that  it  is  desired  to  develop. 

15.  That  the  exercise  productive  of  true  development  must 

be  in  harmony  with  the  function  or  faculty  to  be  de- 
veloped, and  proportioned  to  its  present  strength. 

16.  That  to  be  most  truly  efficient  the  exercise  must  arise 

from  and  be  sustained  by  the  .y^^^-activity  of  the  func- 
tion or  faculty  to  be  developed. 

17.  That  this  self-activity  must  manifest  itself  not  in  re- 

ceptive action  or  acquisition  alone,  but  in  expressive 
action  or  production. 

18.  Practically,  that  children  should  be  busied  with  things 

that  they  can  not  only  see  but  can  handle  and  use  in 
the  making  or  representing  of  new  things  to  express 
their  growing  ideas. 

Pages  414  to  469. 

JACOTOT. 

1.  Set  pupils  to  learning  by  their  own  investigation  and 

refrained  from  giving  them  direct  instruction. 

2.  Asserted  that  all  human  beings  are  equally  capable  of 

learning. 

3.  Declared  that  every  one  can  teach  ;  and,  moreover,  can 

teach  that  which  he  does  not  know, 

4.  Has  done  great  service  by  giving  prominence  to  the 

principle  that  the  mental  faculties  must  be  developed 
and  trained  by  being  put  to  actual  work. 

5.  By  his  doctrine  "  All  is  in  all,"  he  gave  prominence  to  the 

correlation  of  knowledge. 

6.  Made  the  thorough  mastery  of  a  single  book  and  the 

retention  of  it  all  in  the  memory  his  basis  of  all  fur- 
ther accumulation. 

7.  His  methodology  summarized  :  Learn  something,  repeat 

it,  reflect  upon  it,  test  all  related  facts  by  it. 

HERBERT   SPENCER. 

I.  The  value  in  the  views  of  one  who  comes  to  educational 
problems  free  from  tradition  and  prejudice. 


QUICK'S   EDUCATIONAL   REFORMERS.  555 

2.  The  teaching  that  gives  the  most  valuable  knowledge 

also  best  disciplines  in  the  mental  faculties. 

3.  The  end  and  aim  of  education  is  to  prepare  us  for  com- 

plete living. 

4.  The  test  of  the  relative  value  of  knowledge  lies  in  its 

power  to  influence  action  in  right  or  wrong  directions. 

5.  In  method  we  must  proceed  from  the  simple  to  the  com- 

plex ;  from   the   known    to   the   unknown  ;   from   the 
concrete  to  the  abstract. 

6.  Every  study  should  have  a  purely  experimental  intro- 

duction, and  children  should  be  led  to  make  their  own 
investigations  and  draw  their  own  inferences. 

7.  Instruction  must  excite  the  interest  of  pupils  and  there- 

fore be  pleasurable  to  them. 

Pages  470  to  503. 

I.   THOUGHTS   AND    SUGGESTIONS. 

1.  The  ideal  of  public-school  work  is  to  beget  a  healthy 

interest  and  pleasure  in  the  doing  of  hard  work. 

2.  The  interest  to  arise  from    the   nature  of  the  subject 

itself,  or  from  the  recognized  usefulness  of  the  subject, 
or  from  emulation. 

3.  The  value  of  pictures  in  the  teaching  of  children  as  a 

means  of  awakening  active  interest. 

4.  The  first  teaching  in  reading  and  number  to  begin  with 

the  objective   method  and   pass  thence   to  the   sub- 
jective. 

5.  In  geography  and  history  the  lively  description  and  the 

interesting  story  to  precede  the  formal  compend. 

II.   MORAL  AND   RELIGIOUS   INFLUENCE. 

6.  Sources  and  means  of  the  teacher's  influence  upon  his 

pupils. 

7.  Causes  of  the  loss  of  his  good  influence. 

8.  The  influence  of  a  few  leading  spirits  among  the  pupils 

themselves. 

9.  A  mode  of  religious  training. 


556  SYLLABUS. 

Pages  504  to  547. 

REVIEW   OF   EDUCATIONAL   PROGRESS. 

1.  The  good  and   the  ill  influences  of  the  Jesuits  as  the 

''  first  reformers  "  in  educational  practice. 

2.  Rabelais,  the  first  to  advocate  training  as  distinguished 

from  teaching. 

3.  Comenius,  founder  of  the  science  of  education,  recogniz- 

ing in  his  scheme  the  threefold  nature  of  man. 

4.  Rousseau,  the   originator  of   the    "  new  education "  as 

based  upon  the  inherent  nature  of  the  child. 

5.  Pestalozzi  and    Froebel,  reformers  of  the  processes  of 

education,  seeking  to  secure  the  development  of  each 
faculty  by  its  own  activity  in  appropriate  exercise. 


INDEX, 


Abbott 

Abbott,  E.  A.,  on  Montaigne  and  Locke, 
231,  n. 

—  Jacob ;  Teacher,  544 
Accomplishments,  451 
Action,  the  root  of  Ed.,  403 

"  Advice  to  a  Young  Lord  "  (1691),  234,  «, 
iEschines  on  memorizing,  541 
^sop's  Fables,  Locke's,  238,  n. 
Alexander  De  Villa  Dei,  80,  532 
All  can  learn,  Jacotot,  416 

—  Education  for,  356 

—  Education  for.     Comenius,  515,  522 

—  is  in  all.    Jacotot,  423 

—  to  be  educated.     Comenius,  146 
Altdorf  burnt,  326 

Analogies  for  illustration  not  proof,  155 
Anchoran  edits  C.'sjanua,  163 
Andreae,  J.  V.,  122 
Anschauung,  Pestalozzi  on,  360 

—  Froebel  for,  408 
Apparatus,  462 

Aquaviva  and  Jesuit  schools,  36 

Arber,  Prof.,  82,  «.,  83 

Arithmetic,  Children's.     Comenius   145 

—  for  children,  479,  482 

Armstrong,  Ld.,  on  cry  for  Useless  Know- 
ledge, 78,  n. 
Amauld,  his  RigUment,  189 
— the  Philosopher  of  Port- Royal,  187 
Amaulds,  The,  and  the  Jesuits,  173 
Arnold,    Dr.,  educator  of   English   type, 
219 

—  History  Primer,  487 

—  on  citizens'  duties,  447 

Arnold,  M.,  about  the  Middle  Age,  240 

—  Uarb2unan's  inaptitude  for  ideas,  178 

—  on  importance  of  reading,  539 

—  on  studying  great  authorities,  547 

—  on  Words  and  Things,  154 
ArnstUdt,  f  A.  :  Rabdaii,  69 

3« 


Beginners 

Art  learnt  by  right  practice,  4'JO 

—  of  observing  children,  252 
Ascham  against  epitomes,  486,  tu 

—  and  Jacotot,  425 
Ascham's  method  for  Latin,  84 

—  "  six  points,"  85 

"  Ascott  Hope,"  quoted,  498,  n. 
Athletic  public  schoolmen,  514,  «. 
Audition,  Hint  for,  429,  «. 
Augsburg,  Ratke  at,  106 
Sacon  against  epitomes,  446,  n. 

—  for  Jesuits,  33,  «. 

—  for  study  of  Nature,  408 

—  on  "  young  plants,"  406 

—  studied  by  Comenius,  122,  149 
Baconian  teaching.  Effect  of,  510 
Bahrd,  289 

Balliet,  T.  M.,  quoted,  156,  H, 

Banzet,  Sara,  408 

Barbauld,  Mrs.,  on  women's  concealment 

of  knowledge,  98,  n. 
Barbier,  La  Discipline.,  60,  n, 
Bardeen's  Orbis  Pictus,  168 
Barnard,  H.,  English  Pedagogy,  542 

—  Eng.  Pedagogy,  91,  «.,  212,  «. 

—  on  Kindergarten,  409 

—  Opinion  oi  Positions,  91,  and  n. 

—  The  Kindergarten,  413 
Bartle  Massey  in  Adam  Bede,  507 
Basedow  and  Goethe,  277 

BasedoTv,  Pinloche's  mentioned,  289,    n., 

527 
Bateus,  160,  «. 
Bath,  W.,  160,  «. 
Beaconsfield,   Ld.      His  "  two    natioai," 

371 
Beautiful,    Pestalozzi    on    sense    of   the, 

339 
Beginners  shall  have  best  teachcrx.     Mul 
caster,  95 


558 


Bell 


INDEX. 


Colet 


Bell,  Dr.,  at  Yverdun,  35a 

Sellers,  John,  for  hand-work,  211,  n. 

Benham,   D.     His  Comenius,   119.     His 

trans,  of  Sch.  of  Infancy,  142 
Besant,  W.     Readings  in  Rabelais,  67,  r 
Biographies  before  history,  489 
Birmingham  lecture  quoted,  193,  n. 
Blackboard,  Drawing  on,  476 
Blunder  of  insisting  on  repulsive  tasks, 

467 

—  of  not  getting  clear  ideas  about  defini- 
tions, 460 

—  of  giving  only  book  knowledge,  458 

—  of  teaching  epitomes,  483 

—  of  teaching  words  without  ideas,  475 

—  of ''  cramming  "  children,  374,  375 

—  of   not    beginning    at   the    beginning, 
468 

—  of  assuming  knowledge  in  pupil,  468 

—  of  neglecting  interest,  464,  474 

—  of  teaching  the  incomprehensible,  195 

—  about  "  first  principles,"  461 
Bluntschli  warns  Pestalozzi,  293 
Bodily  health,  Jesuits  cared  for,  48,  507 
Bodmer,  291 

Body  its  part  in  education,  566 

—  must  be  educated,  411 

—  Rabelais's  care  of  the,  508 
Boileau's  A  rret,  187,  «. 

Bookishness  of  Renascence.     Montaigne, 

76 
Book-learning,  connected  with  life,  459 
Books  for  teachers,  541 
"Books,  Miserable,"  153 

—  Reaction  against,  510 

—  Respect  for,  481 

—  Rousseau  against,  259 

—  useful  in  learning  an  art,  546 
Bowen,  E.  E.,  118,  ».,  532 

Bow^n,  H.  C,  on  connected  teaching,  424, 
n. 

—  on  development,  399 

—  on  Kindergartens  without  idea,  410 
Breal,  M.,  quoted,  286,  n. 

—  on  child-collectors,  429,  r. 

—  on  teachers,  455,  n. 
Brewer,  Prof.,  98 
Brinsley,  J.,  200 

—  on  training  teachers,  99,  n. 

Brown,  Dr.  John,  Ed.  through  senstt,  458, 

M. 

—  I2om  Stth.,  quoted,  169 


Browning,    Oscar,    on    Humanists,    9k., 

231 
Buchanan  and  Infant  Schools,  409 
Buisson  on  Intuition,  361 
Bulbring,  Dr.,  and  Mary  Astell,  543 
Burgdorf  Institute,  341 

—  Pestalozzi  at,  335 
Burke,  quoted,  437 
Buss,  341,  365 

Butler,  Bp.,  on  Ed.,  147,  148,  n. 

Butler,  Samuel,  quoted,  30 

Cadet  on  Port-Royal,  195 

Calkins,    Prof.,  on  learning  thro    sensM, 

150,  n. 
Cambridge  exam,  of  teachers,  219,  »v 

—  man,  40  years  ago,  431,  m. 
Campanella,  x22 

Campe,  287 

Capitalizing  discoveries,  517 

Carlyle  about  the  Schoolmen,  10,  r. 

—  on  divine  message,  401 

—  on  History,  quoted,  145,  «. 

—  on  Knowledge,  223 

—  on  "  nag  for  sandcart,"  467 

—  on  teaching  religion,  359,  n. 
Carlyle  s  "  mostly  fools,"  517,  n. 

—  "  Succedaneum  for  salt,"  498 
Carr^  on  Port-Royal,  195 

Cat,  Rousseau  on  the,  258 

Cato's  Distichi,  81,  121 

Chambers,  H.  E.,  ofN,Orleans,on"teams," 

531 
Channing,  Eva,  Trans,  of  L,  and  G.,  306, 

n. 
Children  and  poetry,  541 

—  care  for  things  and  animals,  47s,  521 

—  not  small  men,  250 
Childhood  the  sleep  of  Reason,  245 
Christopher  and  Eliza,  309 

Church,  Dean  R.  W.,  on  Montaigns,  71, 

n. 
Citizens'  duties,  447 
Classics,  "  Discovery  "  of  the,  3 

—  do  not  satisfy  modem  wants,  7 

—  in  Public  Schools,  76 

—  too  hard  for  boys,  16 
Classification,  Thoughts  on,  23a 
Classifiers,  Caution  against,  23* 
Class  matches,  42,  529 
Clindy,  Pestalozzi  at,  353 
Clough,  quoted,  358 

Colet,  Dean,  80,  533 


Columbus 


INDEX. 


E^e 


559 


Cc'ambns  and  geography,  a 
Comenius  and  Science  of  ed.,  511 

—  Bcoks  about,  J70 

—  at  Amsterdam,  133 

—  in  London,  126 

—  criticized  by  Lancslot,  188,  •». 

—  stiftung,  119 

Corapaj-re,   Hut.  of  Pedagogy  and  Lec- 
tures, 544 

—  on  Jesuits.  56 

—  on  Port-Royal,  196 
Compendia  Dispendia,  169 
Complete  living,  H.  Spencer  on,  44a 
"Complete  Retainers,"  89,  426,  n. 
Composition,  483 

Compulsion,  Nothing  on,  iia 

Concept,  Larger,  how  formed,  457 

Concertations,  43 

Concrete,  Start  from,  461 

Conduct  of  Undentanding  and  Reasoa, 

391 

Conferences  pMagogiques,  36a 
Connexion  of  knowledges,  424 
Consolation,  &c. ,  Brinsley,  200 
Cooking  should  be  taught,  540 
Coote,   Edward,    English    Scholentaster, 

91 
Corporal  punishment,  Pestalozzi  for,  327 
Cotterill,  C.  C,  Suggested  Reforms,  545 
Cowley's  Proposition,  &c.,  202 
Cowper  on  man  and  animals,  517 
Creative  instinct.     Froebel,  404 
Daniel,  Canon,  quoted,  155,  ». 
Daniel,  Le  P.  Ch.,  quoted,  62,  n. 
Day-dreams  of  a  Schoolmaster,  54s 
Day-schools  wanted,  499 
Dead  knowledge,  52/ 
Decimal  scale  universal,  479 
])e  Garmo,  Dr.,  on  language  work,  481, 

n. 

—  quoted,  403,  n. 

De  Geer  and  Comenius,  130 
De  Imitatione,  quoted,  398 
De  Morgan,  quoted,  433,  n. 
De  Quincey,  quoted,  153,  m. 
Derby,  Ld.,  on  criminals,  358 

—  quoted,  256,  n. 

Development,  Froebel's  theory  of,  400 
Didactic  teaching,  Rou:iseau  against,  a68 
Diderot,  quoted,  365,  n. 

Diesierweg  on  dead  knowledge,  365 
Diesterwcg's  rule  for  repetition,  iii 


Dilucidatio  of  Comenitis,  lej 
Discentem  oportet  credere,  153 
Dislike  often  from  ignorance,  466 
Doctrinale,  So,  532 
Double  Translating,  86 

—  translation  judged,  89 
Drawing,  Comenius  for,  n/k 

—  Pestalozzi  on,  368 

—  Rousseau  for,  261 
Drill,  Need  of,  526 
Drudgery  defined,  47a 
Drummond,  Henry,  quoted,  soa,  n. 
Dunciad,  quoted,  31,  423 
Dupanloup,  Bp.,  quoted,  113 
Dupanloup  against  Public  Schools,  179 
Durj-'s  Reformed  Schoole,  203 

—  watch  simile,  205 

£!arly  education  negative,  344,  40a 
Ecclesiasticus,  quoted,  77 
Ekole  modele,  books  not  used,  154,  «. 
"  Economy  of  Nature,"  440 
Education  of  Man,  published  1826,  392 
Educational  Reformers.    History  of  ib« 
book,  527 

—  in  America,  529 
Educations.     Rousseau's  three,  348 
Edwardes,  Rev.  D.,  quoted,  499,  Ml 
Elbing,  Comenius  at,  130 
Eletnentarie.     Mulcaster's,  92 
Elementary,  Basedow's,  published,  375 

—  course.     Mulcaster,  97 

—  studies.     Comenius,  141 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  Ascham's  pupil,  88 
Elyot's  Govemour,  91,  202 
Emerson,  R.  W.,  quoted,  501 
Empyrical  before  Rational,  463 
Emulation  cultivated  by  Jesuits,  43 

—  Forms  of,  530  1 
Encyclopaidia  Bri.,  385,  «. 

Endter.     Publisher  of  C^ir /"jc/wj,  167 
English,  Mulcaster's  eulogy  of,  534 

—  party  questions,  381 

—  tongue,  Mulcaster  on,  93 

—  without  Verbs  and  Substantives,  460^ 
n. 

Epitomes.     Against,  485 
Erasmus  against  ignorance,  533,  M. 

—  for  small  schools,  180,  n. 

—  the  Scholar,  23 

Erinnerungen  eines  JesuitenzBglings,  60 

Eruditio  in  Jesuit  Schools,  40 

Eve,  H.  W.,  on  old  andyoimg  teacheis,  jotf 


56o 


Evening 


INDEX. 


Harris 


Evening  Hour  of  Hermit,  goa 

Evolution  and  Froebel,  399 

Examination  of  children  for  scholarships, 

97 

—  knowledge,  540 
Examinations  cause  pressure,  77 
Exercises,  Correcting,  484 

—  Hints  for,  429,  n. 
Experience  v.  Theory,  107 
Experts  needed  in  modem  life,  545 
Eyes,  Use  of,  411 

Eyre,  Father,  on  the  Ratio,  57 
Fables  for  Composition,  483 

—  Pestalozzi's,  312 

Faculties,  Equal  attention  to  all,  537 
Fag-end,  Children  not  the,  354 
Faust,  quoted,  426,  428 
Fellenberg,  344 
Fichte  and  Pestalozzi,  347 
Final  opinions,  Demand  for,  410 
Fire  like  knowledge,  433 
First-hand  knowledge  not  enough,  304 
First  impressions  important,  194 
Fischer,  O.,  366,  ». 
Fitch's  Lectures  on  Teaching,  542 
Folk-schools,  Importance  of,  376 
Forcing,  Comenius  against,  144 
Formative  instinct.     Froebel,  404 
Franklin,  B.,  on  reading  aloud,  483 
Froebel  and  Bacon,  408 

—  on  preparing  better  things  for  future, 
547 

—  showed  the  right  road,  384 

Frouda,  J.  A.,  on  use  of  hagiology,  503,  n. 
■  '■  Furtherers"  and  "Hinderers,"  531 
Garbovicianu  on  Basedow,  289,  H. 
Gargantua  s  Education,  63 
Garrick,   David,   "  When  doctrine,   &c.," 

536 
Geikie,  A. :  Teaching-  0/ Geography,  544 
Generalization,  461 

General  view  should  not  come  first,  169 
G  eography  absent  from  Trivium  and  Quad- 

rivium,  a 

—  Beginnings  in,  489 

—  how  begun,  Comenius,  145 
Gerard,  Father  (S.  J.),  quoted,  57 
German  not  a  good  medium  of  thought, 

543 
"  Gertrude,"  Account  of,  301 
Gesner,  J.  M.,  for  Statarisch  and  Lurso- 

risch.  \i 


"Gifts."    Froebel's,  408 
Girard,  P*re,  and  Pestalozzi,  349 
Girardin,  St.  M.,  on  Rousseau,  264,  n. 
Girls,    Schoolmistresses'   blunders    xlion^ 

443 
Giving  "  G.'s,"  530 
Goethe  and  bad  pictures,  487 

—  on  Basedow,  276 

—  on  unity  of  man,  518,  «. 

—  on  Voices  and  Echoes,  504 

—  on  thought  and  action,  546 
Golden  Age,  in  Past  or  Future  ?  39 
Goldsmith  against  epitomes,  486,  ». 

"  Good  scholars  "  as  schoolmasters,  545 

—  spirits  needed  for  teaching,  497 
Grammar,  481,  n. 

—  learnt    from    good    authors,    Aschiun, 
85 

—  Mistakes  about,  460 
Grant's,  H.,  Arithmetic,  482 

"  Gratis  receive,  gratis  give."    Jesuit  rulfs, 

39 
Greaves,  J.  P.,  at  Yverdun,  352,  «. 
Grounding,  Importance  of,  Mulcaster,  ^ 

n. 
Groundwork  by  best  workman,  Mulcastci, 

95 
Grub^s  method,  479 
Guesses  at  Truth,  quoted,  24 
Guillaume's  Pestalozzi  mentioned,  383,  «. 
Guimps,  383,  «. 
Guimps's  Pestalozzi,  317,  &c 
Habrecht,  Isaac,  i6i,  «. 
Hack,  Miss,  Tales  0/  Travelers,  490 
Hailmann,  W.  H.,  on  creative  doing,  4x1 
Hale,  Sir  Matthew,  for  realism,  212,  n. 
Hall,  Stanley,  about  L.  &"  G.,  306,  n. 

—  Experts  needed,  545 
Hallam  on  Comenius,  158 
Halle,  Children  s  Lessons  at,  475 
Hancock,  Supt.  J.,  quoted,  46,  n, 
Handelschulen,  445 

Hands,  Children's  use  erf',  407 

—  use  of,  411 

—  use  of,  S38 
Handwork  at  Neuhof,  297 

—  Comenius  for,  146 

—  Petty  on,  211 

—  Rabelais  for,  66 

—  Rousseau  for,  271 
Harmar,  J..  161,  n. 

Harris,  W  T.,  on  "Nature,"  tag 


Harris 


INDEX. 


Knowledge 


561 


Harris,  W.  T.,  started  public  Kindergar- 
tens, 410 

—  on  thought  and  action,  546 
Harrow  "  Bluebook,"  532 

—  Class-matches  at,  529 

—  Religious  instruction  at,  500 
Hartlib,  S.,  124,  «.,  130 
Hazlitt,  W.  C,  91,  n. 

Helplessness  produced  by  bad  teaching,464 
Hsips,  Sir  A.,  for  science,  447,  n. 

—  on  looking  straight  at  things,  481 

—  on  open-mindedness,  502 

—  quoted,  434,  «. 
Herbart  at  Burgdorf,  367,  n. 

—  on  Rousseau,  269 

Herbert,  Ld.,  of  Cherbury,  on    physical 

ed.,  227 
Hewitson  on  Stonyhurst,  59 
"  Hinter  dem  Berge,"  449 
Hints  from  pupils,  367,  «. 
History,  Beginnings  in,  489 

—  H.  Spencer  on,  448 
Home  and  School,  342 
Honesty  the  best  policy,  529 
Hoole's  A  new  discovery,  &c.,  aoo 

—  trans,  of  Orbis  Picttts,  166 
Humility  to  be  taught,  503 
Hymns  to  be  used,  501 
Ickelsamer,  116 

Ideal,  high,  496 

—  value  of,  382 

—  want  of  an,  471 
Ideas  before  symbois,  253 
"  Idols,"  escape  from,  514 
Ignorance,  Erasmus  agst.,  523 
llfa7ttapprendre,  &c.,  Jacotot,  424 
"  Impressionists,"  89,  426,  «. 
Improvements  suggested  by  Mulcaster,  92 
Inclinations  should  be  studied,  465 
Industrial  school  at  Neuhof,  297 

"  Infelix  divortium  verum  at  verborum,"  139 

Innovators,  103 

"  Inquiry  into  course  of  Nature,"  311 

lust-ntct  is  instruere,  432 

In'sniction  an  exercise  of  faculty,  332 

Intellect  before  critical  faculty.   Comenius, 

138 
Interest,  Degrees  in,  113 

—  in  teaching  needed,  546 

—  needed  for  activity,  474 

—  needed  for  mental  exertion,  193,  n. 

—  No  success  without,  473 


Interesting,  Can  learning  be?  465 
lntmUon= A  HscAauung-,  361 

—  Froebel  for,  408 
Investigation,  Method  of,  437 

"  Ipse  dixit,"  Comenius  against,  152 
Iselin,  editor  of  Ephenterides,  298,  30a 
"Jacob's  Ladder,"  Pestalozzi,  356 
Jahn  on  Froebel,  386 
Jansenius  and  St.-Gyran,  175 
Janua,  English  versions  of  C.'s,  165 

—  Jesuits,  i5o,  «. 

—  of  Comenius  published,  123,  163 
Jebb  on  Erasmus,  523,  n. 

Jesuit  a  trained  teacher,  37 

—  course  included  Studio,  Superiora  el 
inferiora,  38 

—  exams.,  47 

—  shows  effect  of  planned  system,  532 

—  teaching.     An  example  of,  44 
Jesuits.     Books  about,  34 

—  the  army  of  the  Church,  55 

—  the  first  reformers,  506 

Johnson,  Richard,  Grant.  Commentaries, 

82 
Johnson,  Dr.,  on  knowledge  of  education, 

410.  52s 

—  on  Scholemaster,  82 

Jonson,  Ben.     "  Soul  for  salt,"  493,  ». 

JuUien  on  Intuition,  362 

Jung,  106 

Kant  and  Intuition,  361 

—  on  the  Philanthropinum,  288 
Kay-Shuttleworth  and  Pestalozzi,  352 
Kempe,  W.,  Ed.  0/ Children,  83 
"KernsprUche,"  545 
Kindergarten  and  Comenius,  143 

—  a  German  word,  409,  n, 

—  Froebel  on  aim  of,  409 

—  Notion  of,  406 

—  The  first,  394 
Kinglake's  Eothen,  quoted,  15 
Kingsley  on  Jesuits,  54 
Knowing,  after  Being  and  Doing,  J07 

—  by  heart,  74,  n. 
Knowledge  and  Locke,  513 

—  a  tool,  540 

—  and  Comenius,  512 

—  Danger  from,  78 

—  Desire  for,  540 

—  despised  by  New  Educationists,  53* 

—  Genesis  of,  462 

—  Locke's  definition  of,  222 


562 


Knowledge 


INDEX. 


Masters 


Knowledge  must  not  be  dead  knowledge, 

524 

—  not  fastened  to  mind,  Montaigne,  71 

—  over-estimated  by  Comenius,  168 

—  Perfect,  impossible,  336 

—  spreads  like  fire,  433 

—  self-gained,  Locke,  515 

—  Teaching  what  it  is,  453 
Knowledges,  Relative  value  of,  443 

—  Connexion  of,  Comenius,  157 
Known  to  Unknown,  457 
Koetben,  Ratke  fails  at,  107 
Kruesi  joins  Pestalozzi,  340 
Ijancelot  on  Cu.uenius,  186 

—  on  learning  Latin,  185 

Landon,  J.,  School  Management,  S44 
Langethal  and  Froebel,  390 
Language-learning,  Lancelot  on,  186,  n. 

—  Method  for,  426,  n. 

Language  lives  in  small  vocabtilaiy,  169 

—  not  Literature,  17 

—  teaching,  Ratke's  plan,  116 
Languages.     Comenius  on  learning,  140 
Latham,  H.,  Action  of  Exam.,  544 
Latin,  Comenius  for,  159 

Laurie,  S.  S.,  his  Comenius,  119 

—  on  books  of  Comeniixs,  135 

—  on  Milton,  214 
Lavater  and  Basedow,  376 

—  and  Pestalozzi,  291 

Learn,  Every  one  can,  Jacotot,  416 
Learning  as  employment,  75 

—  begins  with  birth.     Pestalozzi,  537 

—  by  heart  wrong.     Ratke,  113 

—  by  heart.     See  Memorizing 

—  for  the  few,  Mulcaster,  93 

—  may  be  borrowed,  Montaigne,  73 

—  must  not  be  play,  367 

—  not  Knowledge,  Montaigne,  71 
Leipzig,  Dr.  Vater  at,  477 
Leisure  hours,  450 

—  often  useless,  498 

Leitch,  J.,  Practical  Educationists,  409 

—  Practical  Educationists,  544 
Lemaltre,  186,  ». 

Leonard  and  Gertrude,  305 
Lessing  on  Raphael,  420 
Leszna  sacked,  132 
"  Letters,"  Comm.  for,  538 
Lewis,  Prince,  and  Ratke,  106 
Light  from  within,  'Nicole,  190 
Likes  and  Dislikes,  Study,  466 


Lily's  Carmen  Mon,,  8t 

—  Grammar,  533 
Literature  and  Science,  154  5^ 

—  at  Port-Royal,  184 

—  in  education,  539 

—  or  Letters,  9 

—  What  is?  6 

"  Little  Schools,"  176 

Locke  against  sugar  a»fd  salt,  i66 

—  and  Froebel,  407 

—  behind  ComeniL»,  230 

—  Books  on,  238 

—  for  Working  Schools,  211,  f% 

—  on  Public  Schools,  177,  513 

—  and  Rousseau,  227 

—  against  ordinary  learning,  234 

—  predecessor  of  Pestalozzi,  36a 

—  two  characteristics,  220 

—  teacher  disposes  influence,  513 

—  Was  he  a  utilitarian  ?  234 
Locksley  ^a// quoted,  152 

Louis  XIV  and  Port-Royalists,  17ft 

Love  the  essential  principle,  358 

Loyola  on  body  and  soul,  6a 

Lowe  or  Pestalozzi?  379 

Lubinus,  E.,  166,  n. 

L-udus  Literarius,  200 

Lupton,  J.  H.,  and  Colet,  534 

Lupton,  J.  H.,  on  CatechisinusV.,  toa,tt. 

Lux  in  tenebris,  133 

Lytton,  Ld.,  on  mother's  interference,  371 

MacAIister,  James,  and  Anscltauung, 

361 
Macaulay  on  French  Revolution,  346 

—  wanted,  488 

"  Magis  magnos  clericos,  &c.,"  70 
Maine,  Sir  H.  S.,  on  studying  teaching 

scientifically,  410,  n. 
Malleson,  Mrs.,  Notes  on  Early  Training, 

544 
Mangnall's  Questions,  374 
Manning,  Miss  E.  A.,  a  Froebelian 
Manual  labour  at  Stanz,  331 
Marcel,  C,  535 

Marenholtz-Bulow  and  Froebel,  394 
Marion's  fraud,  173 
Martineau,  Miss,  and  comet,  223 
Masham,  Lady,  on  Locke,  220,  n. 
Masson,  D.,  quotes  Mulcaster,  534 
Masson,  D.,  quotes  Didac.  Mag.,  140,  t\ 
Masson's  Milton,  quoted,  127,  «. 
Masters  and  religion,  49a 


Masters 


INDEX. 


New 


563 


Masters,  The  "  open  "  and  the  "  reserved," 

494 
Mastery,  365 

Maurice  and  Froebel,  406 
Maurice,  F.  D.,  on  Jesuits,  54 
Max  Miiller,  a  descendant  of  Basedow's, 

289,  n. 
Mayo,  Dr.,  352,  n. 

Mayor,  J.  E.  B.,  on  Scholemaster,  8a,  83 
Mozziiii  on  humanity,  518,  n. 
Measuring  for  arithmetic,  480 
Medijeval  art  excelled  Renascence,  5 
^'■Melius  est  scire pauca,  &c.,"  168 
Memorizing,  113 

—  poetry,  541 

—  Sacchini  on,  50,  n. 

Memory  after  senses,  Comenius,  138 

—  alone  can  be  driven,  474 

—  and  interest,  487 

—  depending  on  associating  sounds,  193, 

H. 

—  helped  by  association,  424 

—  Jacotot's  demands  on,  425 

—  stuffed,  Montaigne,  73 

—  subservient  to  other  powers,  /,ii 

—  The  carrying,  77 

—  Waste  of,  431 

—  without  books,  257 
Methodology,  Truths  of,  536 
Methods  defined,  414 

"  Methods  teach  the  Teachers,"  8a 
Methodus  Linguarum,  published,  131 
Michaelis  and  Moore,  Trans,  of  Froebel, 

413 
Michelet  on  Montaigne,  94 

—  on  Montaigne,  229,  n, 

—  on  Stanz,  317 
Middendorff  and  Froebel,  390 

Middle  Age  blind  to  beauty  in  human  form 

and  literature,  5 
Middle-class  education  without  ideal,  470 
Middle  Schools  Comm.,  quoted,  538 
Mill,  J.  S.,  against  specializing,  453,  n. 

—  for  teaching  classics,  444 

—  on  history,  449,  n. 
Milton  a  great  scholar,  213 

—  a  Verbal  Realist,  215 
and  Realism,  23 

—  on  learning  through  the  senses,  150,  213, 
510 

Milwaukee,  Inter-class  matches  at,  531 
Mind  like  sea-anemone,  474 


Model  book,  Ascham  for,  87 

—  Jacotot's  use  of,  436 

—  Ways  of  studying,  426 
Molyneux  on  geography,  225 
Moncrieff,  H.,  quoted,  498,  n. 
Monitorial  principle,  538 
Monitors  at  Stanz,  333 
Monotony  wearing  to  the  young,  531 
Montaigne  and  Froebel,  407 
Montaigne  for  educating  mind  and  body, 

509 

—  his  paradox  of  ham,  419,  n. 
Moral  development  first,  358 

Morality  is  development  of  infant's  grati- 
tude, 309 

Morals,  Rousseau  on,  263 

Morf,  Summary  of  Pestalozzi's  principles, 
368 

Morgan,  T.  J.,  Educational  Mosaics,  544 

Mother-tongue,  104 

—  Everything  through,  iix 

—  first  at  Port-Royal,  184 

—  Jacotot's  plan  for,  435 

—  only,  till  ten,  Comenius,  139 

—  Ratke  for,  108 
Mulcaster  for  English,  534 
Mulcaster's  elementary  subject,  97 

—  Life,  102 

—  proposed  reforms,  92 

—  style  fatal,  92 
Music,  Benefit  from,  45a 

—  Rousseau  for,  261 
Naef,  Eliz.,  at  Neuhof,  300 
NSgeli,  368 

Napoleon  I  and  Pestalozzi,  343 
Narrow-mindedness,  How  to  avoid,  503 
Natural  History  at  Stanz,  332 
Natural  v.  Usual,  516 
Nature,  Comenius  about,  136,  137 

—  Laws  of,  134 

—  Ratke  for,  100 

—  Return  to,  515 

Negative  education,  Rousseau,  519 
New  Code  of  1890,  379,  n. 
"  New  Education  "  started  by  Rous&eai\ 
271,  522 

—  education  and  old,  524 

—  Froebel's  in  1816,  391,  411 
Newman,  J.  H.,  on  Locke,  23s 

—  on  connexion  of  knowledges,  15S 

—  on  nature  of  literature,  7,  n. 
New  master,  Advice  to,  6e,  rs 


564 


New 


INDEX. 


Posture 


New  road,  Pestalozzi's,  337 

—  York  School  Journal  and  New  Educa- 
tion, 411 

Nicole  on  Ed.,  190 

Niebuhr's  Heroengeschichten,  428,  «. 

Niemeyer  on  thoroughness,  366,  n 

Nihil  est  in  intellectu,  &c,  138 

Noah's  Ark  for  words,  161 

Nonconfonnist,  504 

Normal  Schools  on  increase,  414 

Nouvetle  Hilolse,  Family  life,  243 

Number    of  boarders    in    Port  -  Royalist 

schools  small,  179 
Numbers,  First  knowledge  of,  479 
Numeration  before  notation,  479 
Oberlin,  408 

Observ;ition,  Poetry  for  cultivating,  209 
Observing  children,  251 
"  Omnia  sponte  fluant,"  Comenius,  136 
One  thing  at  a  time,  Ratke,  109 
Opinion,  Education  of,  502 

—  Sensible  men  cannot  differ  in,  Locke, 
221,  n. 

Orbis  Pictus  published,  132,  167 
"Over  and  over  again,"  Ratke,  no 
Over-directing,  Rousseau  against,  265 
Overworking  teachers,  497 
Oxenstiern  sees  Comenius,  128 
Painter,  F.  V.  N.,  History  of  Educa- 
tion, 543 
Parallel  Grammar  Series,  114,  n, 
Paraenesis  by  Sacchini,  34,  n. 
Parker,  F.  W.,  and  Kindergarten,  411 

—  on  reading,  482 

—  Talks  on  Teaching,  544 

Parker,  C.  S.,  in  Essays  on  Lib.  Ed.,  33 

Parkin,  John,  366,  n. 

Parkman,  Francis,  on  Jesuits,  55,  56 

Pascal  and  Loyola,  172 

Past,  No  escape  from  the,  a 

Pattison,  Mark,  on  exams.,  228,  n. 

—  on  dearth  of  books,  12 

—  on  what  is  education,  338 

—  on  Milton 

Pattison's  account  of  Renascence,  4 
Paul  III  recognizes  Jesuits,  35 
Paulsen  on  Jesuits,  55 

—  on  Comenius,  153 

Payn,  James,  on  learning  from  books,  546 
Payne,  Joseph,  on  Pestalozzi,  359,  «. 

—  on  observation,  361 

^  on  child's  unrest,  407,  n. 


Payne,  Joseph,  Science  and  Art  0/  Teach- 

'«^.  542 

—  Papers  on  History  of  Ed.,  544 

—  summing  up  Pestalozzi,  369,  n. 

—  a  disciple  of  Jacotot,  415 

—  and  International  Copyright,  539 

—  on  women's  ed.,  98 

Payne,  Dr.  J.  F.,  notes  to  Locke,  338,  n. 
Payne,  W.  H.,  Science  of  Ed.,  545 
Perez,  B.,  on  Jacotot,  438 
Perfect  familiarity,  433 
Pestalozzian  books,  383 
Pestalozzianism  lies  in  aim,  354 
Pestalozzi's  school  at  Neuhof,  296 

—  talks  with  children  at  Stanz,  325 
Pestalozzi,  a  strange  schoolmaster,  334 

—  A  portrait  of,  345 

—  and  Bacon,  408 

—  His  poverty,  340 

—  His  severity,  308 

Petty 's  Battlefield  simile,  307 

—  Realism,  208 

Philanthropinum,  Subjects  taught  at,  379 
Physical  education  for  health,  104 

—  Ed.  neglected  by  Port- Royalists,  188 

—  Ed.,  Rabelais  for,  67  v 
Physician's  defective  science,  519 
Picture-book  for  History,  Dr.  Arnold,  487 
Pictures  for  teaching,  476 

Piety  at  Port-Royal,  181 
Pinloche's  Basedow  mentioned,  289,  n,  527 
Plants  and  education,  Rousseau,  255 
Plato  against  compulsion,  113 

—  on  literary  instruction,  14 
Play  and  learning  different,  367 
Pleasant,  Learning  must  be,  138 
Pleasurable,  Exercise  is,  464 
Pleasure  in  learning,  Jesuits,  506 

—  in  learning.     Ratke,  113 

—  in  sch.  work.     Sacchini,  52 

—  in  sch.  work.    Mulcaster,  98 

—  in  study  at  Port-Royal,  183,  194 
Poety,  Memorizing,  483 
Pomey's  Indiculus,  40 

Pope.    Z'wMCzo^  quoted,  31,  423 

—  on  Locke  and  Montaigne,  230,  n. 

—  on  "  Nature,"  109 

—  quoted,  451,  «. 

Pope's  "  Little  Knowledge,"  446  ^ 

Port-Royal  des  Champs  and  the  Solitaiiei, 

174 
Posture,  Importance  of,  337 


Potter 


INDEX. 


Ruskin 


565 


Pottfr,  Miss  J.  D.,  quoted,  ax 

Pouring-in  theory,  507 

Practice  does  not  make  perfect,  189 

Pr-.paratory  Schools,  374 

Prendergast  and  language  learning,  426,  n. 

Pressure,  Causes  of,  77 

• —  Mulcaster  against,  97 

Principles  of  the  Innovators,  104 

—  H.  Spencer's  summing  up,  454 
Printing,  Effect  of,  10 

—  spread  literature  at  Renascence,  9 
Private  prayer,  502 
Prize-giving  in  Jesuit  schools,  58 
Prodromzis  of  Comenius,  125,  126 
Prussia  adopts  Pestalozzianism,  346 
Prussian  edict  against  Froebel,  395 
Psychologizing  instruction,  338 

Public  education   must  imitate  domestic, 
Pestalozzi,  321 

—  schools,  513,  «. 

—  schools  Comm.,  quoted,  531 

—  school  freedom,  265 

—  schools  leave  boys  to  themselves,  177 
--  schools  undermastered,  514,  n. 
Punishments    for    moral    offences   only. 

Comenius,  139 

—  in  Jesuit  schools,  48 

—  Pestalozzi  on,  327 
P\ipil  teachers,  377,  n. 
Quadrivium  preferred  by  Rabelais,  65 
Queen  Louisa  on  Pestalozzi,  346 
Questioning,  art  of,  428,  n. 

—  Rousseau,  on  art  of,  266 
Questions  by  pupils  at  Port-Royal,  190 
Quidlibet  ex  quolibet,  423 
Quintilian  on  rudiments,  195,  n> 
Rabelais  for  intuition,  508 

—  His  detachment,  63 

—  on  Curriculum,  67,  «. 
Racine  and  Port-Royal,  187 
Ramsauer  and  Pestalozzi,  336 

"  Rapid  impressionists,"  89,  426,  n. 

"  Ratich,"  105 

Ratio  Studd,  Soc.  Jesu,  34,  note 

Ratke  and  Ascham,  117 

Ratke's  promises,  105 

Raumer  on  Comenius,  146 

Reaction  in  17th  century  against  books,  510 

Reading  after  study  of  things.     Petty,  209 

—  badly  taught,  115,  n. 

—  begun  with    Mother  -  tongue  at  Port- 
Royal,  183 


Reading  in  elementary  schools,  257,  n, 

—  Jacotot's  plan  for,  43s 

—  Rousseau  against,  256 

—  silent  and  vocal,  482 
Realism,  Birth  of,  198 

—  Comenius  for,  149 

—  Rabelais,  66 

Rearing  offspring,  to  be  taught,  447 
Reason,  Locke's  dependence  on,  aai 

—  No  education  before,  242 
Reformation  of  Schools,  125 
Reformers,  Attitude  towards,  396 
Reimarus  and  Basedow,  273 
Rejected  Addresses,  quoted,  505 
Relative  value  of  Knowledges,  443 
Religion  and  Science,  147 

"  Religion"  lessons  in  Germany,  501 
Religious  and  moral  Training,  359 
Religious  instruction,  500 
Renan,  quoted,  247, «. 
Renascence  defects.    See  Table  of  Coik 
tents 

—  gave  a  new  bend  to  ideas,  2 

—  re-awakening  to  beauty  in  lit.,  5 

—  settled  Curriculum,  4 
Repetitio,  45 

Restlessness,  The  Child's,  406 
"  Retainers,"  89 

—  426,  n. 

Reverence  to  be  taught,  303 
Richelieu  and  Saint-Cyran,  174 
Richter,  J.  P.,  on  nurse's  influence,  373,  t, 
Ritter,  Karl,  on  Pestalozzi,  347 
Robertson,  a  methodiser,  426,  «. 

—  Croome,  on  inherited  Knowledge,  364 
n. 

Rollin's  Traits  des  Etudes,  192 

Rooper,  T.  G.,  A  Pot  of  Green  Feathert, 

545- 
Rousseau  against  schoolroom  lore,  363 

—  first  shook  off  Renascence,  246 

—  His  proposals,  267 

—  His  two  dogs,  312 

—  His  great  influence,  240,  290 

—  on  Common  Knowledge,  458,  «. 

—  studied  by  all,  248 
Rousseauism,  516 
Rousseau's  work,  520 
Routine  work  a  refuge,  498 
Rudiments  not  to  be  made  repulsive,  194 
Rules,  Hoole  about,  202 

Ruskin  on  things  and  words,  ijg,  n. 


566 


Russell 


INDEX. 


Teacher 


Russell,  John,  translator  of  Guiraps,  317 
Sacchini  quoted,  39,  41,  46,  47 
Saint-Cyran  and  Port-Royal,  174 
Sainte-Beuve  on  Port-Royal,  195 
Salzmann,  287,  289 
Saros-Patak.     Comenius  at,  13a 
Savoirpar  caeur,  &c.,  74,  n. 
Scheppler,  Louise,  408 
Schmid,  Josef,  goes  to  Yverdun,  349 
Schmid,  J.  A.,  on  Jesuits,  34 
Schuepfenthal,  School  at,  zSq 
Schola  matemi gremii,  142 
ScholemasUr,  When  published,  81 
School-hours  of  Jesuits  short,  43 
Schoolmaster  and  words,  538 

—  his  test  of  knowledge,  229 

—  in  Education,  177 

—  art  led  to  Verbalism,  30 
School  means  different  things,  5j« 
Schoolroom  rubbish,  252 
Schuppius,  in  spent,  &c.,  432 

Science  of  Education  dates  from  Comenins, 

—  of  Education  denied  by  Lowe,  379 

—  of  Education  growing,  505 

—  of  education.  Importance  of,  456 

—  of  education  like  medicine,  519 

—  of  Education,  Mulcaster  for,  94 

—  of    education,    only    beginning.      H. 
Spencer,  4S5 

—  the  thought  of  God,  413 
Scientific  foundation  for  Method,  41st 

—  knowledge  new  valued,  77 
Scioppius  edits /a«»a,  lox,  n, 
"  Scratch  pairs,"  530 

Seeley,  J.  R.,  on  language  teaching,  460 

—  on  use  of  tongue,  112,  ». 
Self-activity,  401 

—  the  main  thing,  524 
Self-development,  H.  Spencer  lot,  46a 
Self-education,  Locke  for,  236 
Self-preservation,  Educatica  for  4;3 
Self-teaching :  Jacotet,  415 

Seneca  for  knowing  few  things,  I68 

—  on  learning  through  parts,  540 
Sense,  Art  learnt  by.  Dtuy,  ao6 
Senses,    Everything  through,   RousKeau, 

859 

—  Error  of  neglecting,  151 

—  first,  Comenius,  138 

—  Hoole  about,  20 

— ■  How  to  cultivate.    Roussexii,  a(n. 


Senses,  Insufficiency  of,  15a 

—  Learning  from.     Comenius,  149 

—  Rousseau  on  training,  257,  258 

—  Teach  by  the.    Nicole,  igr 

—  Training  of  the.    Mulcaster,  95,  m. 
Sequences  of  nature  arranged  by  man,  514 
Severity,  Wolsey  against,  81,  ». 
Shakespeare  and  Mulcaster,  91 

—  "  No  profit  grows,  &c.,"  473 

—  quoted,  17 

Shaw  and  Donnell :  School  Devices,  544 
Shirreff,  Miss,  a  Froebelian,  413,  n. 
Sides,  Good  of,  532 
Sidgwick,  A. ;  Lectures  on  Stimulus  and 

Discipline,  544 
Simple  to  complex,  456 
Singing,  368 

Skyte  sees  Comenius,  128 
Small  schools  worse  than  large,  179 
Societas  Professa  of  Jesuits,  36 
Sociology,  449 

Sonnenschein's  parallel  Grammars,  114  n. 
"  Soul  instead  of  salt,"  Ben  Jonson,  498,  n. 
Spartan  Ed.  preferred  by  Montaigne,  72 
S.P.C.K.  pictures,  476,  «. 
"Spectator's  C.  in  easy  chair,"  quoted,  527 
Spelling,  483 

—  Jacotot's  plan  for,  436 
Spencer,  H.,  Conclusions  about,  452 

—  his  "  Economy  of  nature,"  235 
Stanford  Rivers,  Mulcaster  at,  102,  n. 
Stanz,  Pestalozzi  at,  316,  318,^ 

—  The  French  at,  315 
Starting-points  of  the  Sciences,  Comenius, 

144 
Stephen,  Sir  J.,  quoted,  434 
Stonyhurst  College,  by  Hewitson,  59 
Street  for  Mediaeval  art,  5 
Study  depends  on  will,  193 
Sturmius.    See  Table  of  Contents 
Stylists,  26 
Sugar  needed,  466 
Sunrise  can't  be  hastened,  191 
Superintendence,  the  educator's  fanctioOi 

357 
Sweetmeats,  Locke  against,  466 
Swiss  Journal,  Pestalozzi,  309 
Talleyrand  on  methods,  82 
Teach,  Everyone  can,  Jacotot,  417 

—  Meaning  of  word,  417 
Teacher  a  gardener,  512 

—  Can  be  write  on  Education  7  439 


Teacher 


INDEX. 


Wordsworth 


567 


Teacher  does  not  begin  at  beginning,  468 

Teachers,  Books  for,  541 

Teachers,  College  for.    Mulcaster,  100 

—  Harm  of  overworking,  497 

—  ignorant  of  principles,  455 

—  must  be  trained,  412 

—  Old,  overdo  repetition,  506 

—  Young,  neglect  repetition,  506 
Tearher's  Dusiness,  272 

—  personality,  Force  of,  Forum,  quoted, 
380 

Teaching,  causing  to  learn,  417 

—  gained  from  pupils,  497 

—  Good,  escapes  common  tests,  193 

—  needs  good  spirits,  497 
Tel^maque,  423 

"  Telling,"  H.  Spencer  against,  463 
Theorists,  Use  of,  383 
Things  before  words,  104 

—  Children's  delight  in.     Petty,  aio 
"  Things  "  in  education,  521 
Things,  Rabelais  for,  65 
Threefold  life,  Comenius,  135 

Thring.  Theory  and  Practice  of  Teaching, 

542 
Tillich's  bricks,  480,  n. 
Tithonus,  Quotation  frsin  Tennytoa  s,  518, 

n. 
Tobler,  341 

Tone  of  school  and  big  boys,  500 
Tout  est  en  tout,  423 
Tradition,  loss  and  gain  from,  518 

—  needed,  182 

Trainer  better  than  teacher,  422 
Training  of  teachers,  Mulcaster,  99 

—  of  teachers  needed,  520 
Transcription,  Hint  for,  429,  «. 
Translating  both  ways,  86 
Translations  at  Port-Royal,  185 

—  discouraged  at  Renascence,  8 

—  would  be  literature,  15 
Travelers,  Tales  of,  490 

Trench,    Archbishop,    on     13th    century 

art,  5 
TrumbuU,  H.  K.    Teaching  and  Teachei  s, 

542 
Trivium  and  Quadrivium,  • 

—  like  squirrel's  revolving  cage,  10 
Tyndall  on  teaching,  468,  n. 
Uniformity,  Raike  for,  114 
Unity,  Froebel's  desire  for,  398 

—  of  Universe,  Froebel,  389 


Universities  excluded  Baconian  teaching, 

5" 
University  men  in  middle  class  educaticn, 

472 
Ununt  necessarium,  quoted,  133 
Upton,  Editor  a(  Schole master,  82 
Useful  knowledge,  540 
Usual  contrasted  with  natural,  $16 
Utilitarianism  defined,  235 
Variations,  Prendergastian,  428,  «. 
Vater,  Dr.,  at  Leipzig,  477 
Ventilabrum  Sapientiae,  ijs- 
Verbal  Realism,  25 

—  Rabelais,  65 

Verbalism,  Milton  against,  213,  214 

"  Visibles"  used  for  Realien,  70,  r, 

Vive  la  destruction,  i 

Vogel,  Dr.,  at  Leipzig,  478 

Vogel,  A.,  on  Comenius,  156 

"Ward,  James,  on  Kindergarten,  410 

Weighing  for  arithmetic,  480 

Welldon,  J.  E.  C.,  on  schools  for  young 

boys,  499,  «. 
Well-educated,  When,  525 
Widgery,  W.  H.,  quoted,  90 
Wilderspin  and  Infant  Schools,  409 
Will,  learning  depends  on.    Jacotot,  4ns 

—  needed  for  study,  193 
Wilson,  H.  B.,  on  Mulcaster,  102 
Wilson,  J.  M.,  against  "  telling,"  432 

—  on  training,  422 
Winchester,  "  Standing  up,"  541 
Winship,  A.  E.,  on  inter-class  matches,  531 
"Wisdom  cried  of  old,"  &c.,  77 
Wisdom  in  "  the  general,"  517,  n. 

—  must  be  our  own,  Montaigne,  73 
Wolf,  F.  A.,  for  self-teaching,  368 

—  on  child-collectors,  429,  «.  * 
Wolf,  Hiero.,  quoted,  31 
Wolsey,  80 

Women  Commissioners,  308 
Women's  education,  98,  412 

—  education,  Comenius,  141 

—  interest  in  education,  106 
Wooding,  W.,  on  numbering,  479,  480,  n. 
Words  and  Things,  538 

Words.  Learning  from,  364,  n, 

—  studying,  154 

—  taught  without  meaning,  467 

"  Words,"  Various  meanings  of,  538 
Wordsworth  on  action  of  man,  516 

—  on  children's  games,  407 


568         Wordsworth 


INDEX. 


Yverdun 


Wordsworth,  on  general  truths,  496 

—  on  need  of  pleasure,  473,  t. 

—  quoted,  20 

—  Taste  in  books  changes,  543 

—  on  tendency,  516 

—  on  unit;  of  man,  518,  n. 


Wordsworth    "We   live    by   adinimttcm 

&c.,"  154 
Working-schools,  Locke's,  211,  n. 
Worship  connected  with  instruction,  501 
Writing,  Jacotot's  plan  for,  435 
ITverdun,  Pestalozzi  goes  to,  344 


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and  does  enviable  credit  to  its  editors  and  publishers." — From  the  Hon.  Robert  C. 

WiNTHROP. 

"  I  have  carefully  examined  '  Appletons'  Cyclopaedia  of  American  Biography,'  and 
do  not  hesitate  to  commend  it  to  favor.  It  is  admirably  adapted  to  use  in  the  family 
and  the  schools,  and  is  so  cheap  as  to  come  within  the  reach  of  all  classes  of  readers 
and  students." — From].  B.  Vov.ml'b.v.,  ex-Governor  of  Ohio. 

"  This  book  of  American  biography  has  come  to  me  with  a  most  unusual  charm.  I* 
sets  before  us  the  faces  of  great  Americans,  both  men  and  women,  and  gives  us  a  per- 
spective view  of  their  lives.  Where  so  many  noble  and  great  have  lived  and  wrought, 
one  is  encouraged  to  believe  the  soil  from  which  they  sprang,  the  air  they  breathed,  and 
the  sky  over  their  heads,  to  be  the  best  this  world  affords,  and  one  says,  '  Thank  (jod, 
I  also  am  an  American  ! '  We  have  many  books  of  biography,  but  I  have  seen  none 
so  ample,  so  clear-cut,  and  breathing  so  strongly  the  best  spirit  of  our  native  land.  No 
young  man  or  woman  can  fail  to  find  among  these  ample  pages  some  model  worthy  of 
imitation."- — From  Frances  E.  Willard,  President  N.  W.  C.  T.  U. 

"I  congratulate  you  on  the  beauty  of  the  volume,  and  the  thoroughness  of  the 
work." — From   Bishop    Phillips  Brooks. 

"  Every  day's  use  of  this  admirable  work  confirms  me  in  regard  to  its  comprehen- 
siveness and  accuracy." — From  Charles  Dudley  Wakner. 

Price,  per  volume,  cloth  or  buckram,  %^.qp;  sheep,  $6.00;  half  calf  or  half  mo- 
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